Election Commission is under the Lens
Nilotpal Basu
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THE experience of democracy in India has been largely synonymous with electoral democracy. The principle of ‘for the people, by the people and of the people’ has been manifested through the formation of governments composed of parties and coalitions which command support of the majority of the people. Of all the countries where electoral democracy has been in place after the end of the Second World War and retreat of colonial governments, the principle of electoral majority has remained in course despite strains and even setbacks. But the strength and resilience of the Indian Constitution which was a direct outcome of the freedom struggle had held its ground.
The credibility of the election process has been a key feature of the sustenance of this democratic set up. The constitution makers had envisaged that the electoral authority should lie with a body which is structurally capable of conducting a free and fair election by ensuring a level playing field for all the political parties who stake their claim for being in office and governance. The wide powers vested in the Election Commission with the task for holding most assembly and parliament elections have undergone a process of evolution making electoral democracy robust. Not just credibility, but the reputation of the EC was not only limited to its acceptance and approval by the electors and the larger society, but it went beyond the geographical frontiers of the country. Electoral democracies, far and wide, have come to study the methods and dynamics of the elections in India.
EC DURING THE
MODI GOVERNMENT
In line with the growing trend of erosion of the independent character of statutory and constitutional authorities, the Election Commission has also not remained insulated. The composition of the commission started attracting controversy during the 2019 Lok Sabha election when one of the commissioners, Ashok Lavasa abruptly resigned .The departure of commissioner Lavasa was accompanied with reports about differences within the commission over complaints by opposition parties against Narendra Modi.
The controversy regarding the appointment of chief election commissioner and other commissioners reached the Supreme Court. The apex court clearly formulated that the appointing authority should consist of a panel which would include the prime minister, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha and the chief justice of the Supreme Court, so that there would be no definitive influence of the executive. However, this was promptly overturned by the government which through its majority in the parliament provided a stranglehold to the government over the Election Commission. Along with the prime minister, another minister of his choice could be in the selection panel along with the leader of the opposition. In this background, there was a further element of suspicion which cast a shadow. When one of the existing election commissioners resigned and two new commissioners were appointed just days before the election was announced, the doubts compounded.
In these circumstances there were other contentious issues which reached the apex court for adjudication reflecting the growing concerns over the role of the EC and the manner in which it will conduct the election.
2024 ELECTIONS AND THE
SITUATION WE FACE
The elections process began in the backdrop of a historic verdict by the Supreme Court when it declared the electoral bonds unconstitutional. The electoral bond was a clear instrument which ensured the dominance of the ruling party in accessing election finances and overall funding itself. The operation of the bond also revealed a deep nexus between the corporate finance and the government introducing a major lack of transparency for the people.
The net result is that the ruling party BJP is sitting on a stockpile of over Rs 8,000 crores and is overwhelmingly ahead of all other political parties. There is no further evidence required to establish how the huge disparity in campaign finance has completely undermined the level playing field across the political spectrum.
Given such a backdrop, it was quite natural that the onus remained on the ECI to ensure much more efforts to restore the level playing field. It is worthwhile to mention that not only through Article 324 of the Constitution, the political parties have empowered the EC to enforce the model code of conduct (MCC) as soon as the elections are announced during the pendency of the entire exercise. This is a major empowerment of the poll body to act independently.
Over the years, though there were issues which political parties took up with the EC, but generally the EC’s authority was not questioned. However, the atmosphere of mutual respect and trust between the EC and the political parties has clearly come under strain.
The first major bone of contention was the clear violation of the BJP leadership, particularly, the prime minister Narendra Modi in the manner in which he was invoking the religious motives, temple, the difference of religious denomination of the voters, spewing mutual hatred between communities to force communal polarisation for electoral gains.
Just on the eve of the elections, the EC had issued a general advisory to all political parties on March 1, 2024 regarding the dos and don’ts in the election campaign. The issue that was most sharply underlined was that of avoiding precisely this line of campaign.
However, violations by Modi and Amit Shah were most explicit, not to speak of other lesser leaders of the BJP. All major political parties who were part of the INDIA platform including the CPI(M) immediately started to flag these violations with specific references quoting text of speeches and video recordings. However, the EC was halting in its response. They have not issued any notice on the offenders, but have only informed the president of BJP. Even after the passage of a considerable period of time, there is no information in the public domain about his response to these blatant violations.
The second question which is raising a lot of concern is the delay of EC in publishing the data on the final polling figures for the first two phases. The data was released after eleven days and four days respectively. The variation in the polled vote data is between five to six per cent from the preliminary figures published by the EC on the day of polling. Unfortunately, here again the Election Commission has not brought its explanation for the discrepancy, nor has it come out with an absolute number of votes polled assembly-wise and parliamentary constituency-wise.
MEETING WITH EC
Though several parties had written separately, the INDIA platform parties decided to collectively represent before the EC. The meeting was held on May 10 at 5 pm. Though the Election Commission was well aware of the concerns, it had not forwarded any response to these issues before the meeting. The meeting was attended by representatives of all INDIA parties including myself (attending on behalf of the CPI(M). The concerns were cogently placed before the full commission. It is only during the meeting that we came to know the EC has uploaded a response in the form of reply to Mallikarjun Kharge, the Congress president on the question of the delay and variance of the final turnout data. Therefore, there was no scope for responding to the factual details. However the commission put the onus of raising this concern on the political parties themselves. The fact that final data is available with the political parties after the completion of polling through the Form 17 C as issued by the presiding officer is sufficient to collate the data. The EC also referred to updated data available through its voter app. However, the written response itself reveals that unlike in the past the variation of the initial figures released and the final figures arrived at are at a variance which is far from normal as compared to 2019. The tone and tenor of the written response to Kharge’s communication is intemperate. Without spelling it out in so many words, it virtually questions the right of the political party to raise these questions during the pendency of the election.
However, the commission was forced to concede their failure to serve notice on Narendra Modi for violation speech even though the commission was not in a position to contradict the grave implications of the materials. The commission had nothing to share with the delegation on the response of the BJP president; not to speak of what follow up action the commission would initiate against the offenders. This is extremely disappointing to say the least. Though the EC was charging the political parties for undermining the ‘credibility of the ECI and the election process’, it failed to recognise that the EC itself was empowered by Article 324 and the MCC, making it the most important custodian of this very credibility.
Finally, the meeting between the representatives and the EC brought out a sensational allegation against the local police officials in Uttar Pradesh. The representative of the Samajwadi Party produced documentary evidence as to how the local police officials in UP are issuing a so-called red card to countless voters warning them of severe punitive measures alleging that there are grounds to believe that they could disrupt the peaceful poll. These notices were neither with the knowledge nor authorisation of the EC. The text of these warnings showed that they were not based on any concrete evidence but premeditated and loaded with denominational bias with Muslims being overwhelming numbers of recipients of such brazen threats.
In the case of such incriminating evidence the EC was forced to admit that these were completely illegal and will be halted forthwith.
A LITMUS TEST
The conduct of the Election Commission faces a litmus test in the prevailing atmosphere of the country where the BJP is hell-bent on forcing polarisation. The EC’s capacity to stand up to such flagrant violations is under scrutiny. Unless it fails to act despite the maximum empowerment for ensuring a level playing field, it will go down in history as a body which could not stand up in enforcing its own directions, not to speak of violations of several existing laws. The EC has to in reality remain a custodian of the credibility of the election process and the reputation of the country as the largest electoral democracy.
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