It happened a decade back during the elections to the local bodies.
A lecturer in a prominent city college who was assigned election duty consistently gave the authorities a slip. As he went absconding, the district collector, who was also the district election officer, issued a warrant against him.
Police eventually trapped the lecturer as he sneaked into his house in the cover of night. “Police literally pulled him from under his cot where he was hiding, He even filed a case against me for harassment,” recollected the then district collector A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish with a chuckle.
With another election round the corner, The Hindu caught up with four former district collectors to learn about the ingenious methods invented by employees to abdicate election duty during their tenure.
P.I. Sheikh Pareed still can’t stop smiling thinking about a government employee who came to his chamber glum-faced two days before the 2011 Assembly elections requesting an exemption, as his father had passed away.
His request was duly granted on humanitarian grounds. It was much after the dust had settled on the election that it came to light that it was not his father but the father (priest) in his parish who had expired.
K.R. Viswambharan had a tough time during the 1999 Parliament elections when a government employee from Perumbavur kept on eluding election duty. One of those days, he came to know that the officer concerned was at the collectorate.
A massive hunt was launched and the official was found hiding behind a bush. “But then we realised that he was mentally unstable and was given exemption,” Mr. Viswambharan said. What M. Beena dreaded most during the election season was the torrential flow of medical certificates leaving her wondering as to how so many people fall sick at the same time. “Some produced certificates for Ayurveda treatment, which we had to be doubly careful about. Then there were recommendations from senior bureaucrats and politicians for exemption to people they know,” she said.
