AA Edit | Trust Eroded, EC Needs A Complete Overhaul

Reports of a constitutional body tasked to conduct free and fair elections in the world’s largest democracy indulging in undemocratic practices both within and outside it, impacting the democratic rights of the very people it is built to serve, are perhaps the worst blow India can suffer in these times. This is a historic moment demanding resolute action from all those people and institutions with a responsibility to keep the flame of constitutional democracy burning in this country.

Chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar is in the dock for one too many reasons, and each of them needs a thorough investigation. Reports have said the two other commissioners in the panel questioned the decision of the CEC 14 times in 10 months; and the topics were of lasting import to a fair electoral process.

The arbitrary and undemocratic way the special intensive revision (SIR) of the voters’ lists was conducted across India resulting in the deletion of crores of voters exposed the fragile nature of our system: there was no one to help out the thousands of legitimate voters in several states whose names were struck off the list for no fault of theirs. There are many who believe elections were in fact stolen in the process. The EC and its backers may call it a coincidence but the fact remains that the difference in the number of votes polled by the victorious BJP in West Bengal Assembly elections and the Trinamul Congress is about 33 lakhs and the number of voters who have contested the deletion of their names after SIR is 22 lakhs in an election in which 6.3 crore votes were cast. The BJP swept the elections by a tiny margin in the popular vote. It appears that both the election commissioners had objected to such massive deletions, but were overruled.

The concentration of the data on state electoral rolls in Delhi instead of decentralising it in the constituencies casts a shadow on the motive of the Election Commission. Inventing a questionable premise dubbed logical discrepancies and then using it to strike off names in their lakhs with software very few people have access to is not the way to go. But the commission under CEC Gyanesh Kumar went ahead with it; and the courts remained mute spectators, and thereby, became collaborators in the whole enterprise. There were questions on how and why orders were issued without the concurrence of the commission, how changes were made in Form 6 which is used to enrol new voters and how the agenda and minutes of the meeting were not made available to the other commissioners.

Disagreements are healthy signs in a robust democracy and the BJP is right in interpreting the whole controversy in that direction. But the real question is not how interpretation goes but instead how even this adds to the mockery of the electoral process that was made by the EC in the country. It is not that as if these issues were not flagged earlier. But they were not given the focus they ought to have been.

An immediate and urgent relook at the way the EC functions is imperative if democracy is to survive in India. As Justice Dipankar Datta of the Supreme Court said while questioning the law that gave the government of the day a decisive say in the formation of the EC, “If free and fair elections are to be ensured, it is axiomatic that the ECI must not only be an independent body but also be seen to act independently.” The first step in this direction will be to make the CEC leave his office. Parliament and the Supreme Court must then rise to the occasion and do whatever it takes to restore the credibility of the institution.