ONE of the cardinal principles of a vibrant, organic democracy is the manner in which elections are held. What is important in this connection is transparency, impartiality and accountability of the body administering elections. Whatever be the aberrations or peculiarities of the TN Sheshan (former CEC) period, the impartial authority that the ECI should possess was made public during those days. Ever since Gyanesh Kumar took over, just the opposite has been the case. Gyanesh Kumar has been acting as the butcher of the electoral rolls, dismembering them by removing living, genuine voters. Bharat Ratna C N R Rao to actor Prakash Raj were thus robbed of their right to vote and made to go through administrative hurdles to win it back.

Ritika Chopra’s investigation, published on September 23 in the Indian Express, shows that the challenge to Gyanesh Kumar now comes from inside the Commission itself. Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi placed at least 14 objections on record over ten months, against decisions and orders issued in the ECI’s name without their knowledge. Two of these objections went to the Cabinet Secretary. Form 6, the form for enrolling as a voter, was altered in July to ask whether the applicant’s parent or grandparent figured in the roll of the “last SIR”, although Joshi had warned in May that this needed an amendment to the Registration of Electors Rules. Sandhu later recorded that the change was unauthorised and illegal. Joshi also warned of the growing centralisation of the electoral roll database, while Sandhu noted that the Commission’s IT head had no legal authority to curb the access that statutory Electoral Registration Officers enjoy. In West Bengal, 38 lakh appeals are pending before tribunals, 16.10 lakh of them filed by the ECI itself, seeking deletion of voters. Sandhu asked who filed them but neither he, nor Joshi, nor the state’s Chief Electoral Officer have been given an answer yet.

While being in West Bengal in connection with the Assembly election campaign in the month of April, I could find photographs of Electoral Officers who were discharging responsibilities as officers conducting the election, unable to vote because their names were removed from the rolls. National dailies like Statesman had featured them. In West Bengal, the SIR struck about 91 lakh names off the rolls, which is roughly 12 per cent of the electorate. Of these, 27 lakh were deleted after adjudication for “logical discrepancy”, which was a category introduced at the time only in Bengal, and over 99 per cent of the appeals were still pending when the Assembly elections took place in the state. Analysis of declared results found 49 constituencies where deletions after adjudication alone exceeded the winning margin. The BJP won 26 of them, the TMC 21 and the Congress two, although the TMC had held 48 of the 49 in 2021. In Rajarhat New Town, the margin was 316 votes, against 24,132 deleted after adjudication. In Satgachhia it was 401, against over 26,000 deletions. Analyses counting every category of deletion found removals exceeding the margin in more than half of the 294 seats. This does not prove how any excluded voter would have voted, but a democracy cannot be comfortable when the excluded outnumber the deciding margin.

Under Modi, there was an impression that independent and investigative media was more or less dead, barring for a few exceptions. It is heartening that Indian Express has proved that investigative journalism in India is still alive and kicking. The so-called clarification issued by the ECI after the Indian Express exposé does not address the actual issues raised. One of these is the circulation of agenda in advance, and circulation of minutes after the meeting. It must come as a shock to many that something as basic as that, which is followed by any organisation, big or small, was not being followed by the ECI till now.

Several specious questions are now being raised. One such question is that the CEC till Sheshan and Election Commissioners after Sheshan, were being appointed by the executive. This is due to the failure of the consecutive Union Governments ever since the adoption of the Constitution in 1950, to enact any law in the Parliament with regard to their appointment. Article 324 empowers the President of India to appoint Election Commissioners, until Parliament enacts a law to appoint them. In January 2015, Anoop Baranwal filed a PIL challenging the system for appointing members of the ECI. The case was heard by a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Justice K M Joseph. The Union Government in its response said that the SC could not intervene in the matter as there was no evidence of misuse.

It was against this background that the bench ruled unanimously on March 2, 2023, that the Commission’s independence could not be left to the executive alone. The Court directed that until the Parliament enacts a law under Article 324, the CEC and Election Commissioners be appointed by the President on the advice of a committee of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India. It also urged Parliament to give Election Commissioners the same protection against removal, that the CEC enjoys. Prime Minister is the highest executive office in the country, and should be part of the decision making regarding CEC appointment. The role of the opposition in a democracy needs no explanation. When there is a difference of opinion regarding the person to be selected for ensuring the impartiality of the election process in the country, the presence of a politically neutral Chief Justice of the country would have worked in bringing out a consensus. However, the Narendra Modi government chose to throw the direction by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court to the wind. Instead of giving legislative shape to the wise, legal and transparent advice, they first promulgated an ordinance and then introduced a bill making the appointment of the CEC a politically lopsided procedure. As a result, executive representation became two-thirds and the LoP became a mere spectator.

The point is, from the conduct of Gyanesh Kumar, the purpose of the Modi government in discarding the SC direction has become abundantly clear. All the more so because he has been behaving as a puppet dancing to the tunes of the BJP, which is controlled by the fascistic RSS. After the Indian Express exposé, he should have resigned promptly, if he had any self-respect. Every hour passed with Gyanesh Kumar clinging on to the post of the CEC underlines his lack of dignity and integrity. 

CPI(M) wants the entire non-BJP, non-NDA political spectrum to join hands, notwithstanding their various kinds of differences, in the movement for the removal and prosecution of Gyanesh Kumar, halting of the SIR process, immediate steps to restore all the eligible names removed from the electoral rolls and instituting a transparent mechanism for the selection of the CEC and ECs, on the lines suggested by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court. It has to be the broadest possible movement ever.

Our approach is that not just political parties, but the entire civil society, public intellectuals, artists, writers and cultural personalities should all come together as part of this movement. This has been endorsed by the five left parties – CPI(M), CPI, CPI(ML) Liberation, AIFB and RSP, and we saw a glimpse of this broad coming together on September 29.

The INDIA-Bloc meeting held on September 30 has also agreed to this position, so that our constitutional values and the idea of India can be defended. As announced in the Bloc’s press conference, joint protests will be conducted in all districts of the country. This would be a historic turning point in the political evolution of a new India.