After remaining deafeningly silent on a media report casting serious doubts about the fairness and functioning of the Election Commission (EC) on the crucial exercise of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the EC held a meeting September 26 attended by all its three members to showcase unanimity and announce some corrective measures.
The media report by Indian Express alleged serious differences of opinion within the EC on some vital actions of SIR “unilaterally ordered” by the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. If there is truth in the allegations, it makes the CEC liable to prosecution for the criminal offence of robbing about 130 million people of their voting rights. The CEC’s response since the media revelations of committing “illegal acts” has been bizarre.
He did not immediately rebut the charges, but seemingly let the BJP take it upon itself to hold a brief for him. The ruling party fielded its spokesman Sambit Patra to defend the CEC. Patra brushed aside the serious charges calling the differences of opinion within the EC as a sign of the functioning of a “robust democracy” in which all the three members have equal rights to articulate their opinions on any issue. It was an exercise in prevarication as the main issues of violations of EC rules by the CEC were not addressed at all.
The unwarranted BJP defence of the CEC only helped strengthen suspicions that Gyanesh Kumar had acted on instructions from political bosses. After Gyanesh finally appeared along with the two other commissioners September 26, the EC announced nine decisions that addressed, point by point, several of the concerns recorded at least 14 times by the two Commissioners – Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi – in their notes, revealed by the media.
However, three days back, the EC had called those notes “suggestions” and “inputs”, part of normal deliberations. The objections pertained to serious questions of who gets registered as a voter, who gets deleted and restored, who appeals against those restorations and who controls the systems through which the electoral roll is maintained. The two Commissioners also questioned why the whole process of scrutinizing and deleting names during SIR was taken away by the EC’s IT cell from the EROs who work at the field.
The corrective measures announced tend to admit the wrongs committed by Gyanesh as pointed out by the two Commissioners in their notes. The new decisions such as circulating agendas from now on before every EC meeting and issuing minutes afterwards and vetting of new IT modules and portals by a committee of officers before being placed before the Commission only suggest the ills that were plaguing the SIR till the media revelations spilled the beans.
These corrective measures are but responses to the concerns the two Commissioners had put on file over 10 months ago. It does not reverse what has happened in the SIR process till now. This sharp turn only signals how deep the disquiet inside the Commission had become and how far it had travelled outside, with Opposition parties demanding that polls on SIR rolls be cancelled. Even after the corrective measures have been announced several questions remain unanswered.
The note issued by the EC is silent on who authorised the appeals in West Bengal filed against voters whose inclusion had been ordered by judicial officers and whether they were filed on behalf of ECI and under whose direction. The question whether DG (IT) Seema Khanna, whose functioning was a point of contention, and Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg, against whom both Commissioners sought action, would continue in their positions has also been left vague.
All these seem to strengthen the case being made out by the Cock roach Janta Party (CJP) and the Opposition for the immediate resignation and penal action against the CEC. The CJP has listed three big demands – resignation of Gyanesh Kumar and initiation of criminal proceedings against him, freezing SIR and restoring the January 2025 voter list and repealing the 2023 law that has virtually empowered the government of the day to put candidates of their choice for the post of three Election Commissioners, including the CEC.
A Supreme Court judge has already flagged the law. As the agitation by youths and students demanding Gyanesh’s resignation and legal action against him is spreading from the capital to other parts of the country, the matter cannot be ignored much longer. People’s faith in the judicial system is fast eroding. Now, the electoral system is under question.
This kind of deep mistrust of people with the government and governance systems can create a volatile situation where laws and lawmakers are ignored by the populace. That seems to be where India is currently headed.