We should not lose sight of the massive, targeted disenfranchisement which would create two classes of Indians, one with franchise and the other without franchise
The shocking revelations about the rift in the Election Commission of India have raised serious doubts about its credibility. The claim published in the media that the poll body had not met in full strength even once in the last four months and that as many as 14 notes of disagreements and objections by two Election Commissioners (ECs) went unheeded and unanswered, put the functioning of the Commission, especially of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), in the spotlight. The two press releases issued by the ECI have only deepened the public’s suspicions about its opaque functioning instead of clearing the air and instilling confidence in the people. The press releases have not put any documentation to refute the claims made in the media’s investigative reports.
Questions about the irregular practices in implementing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) are now being sharply raised by the Opposition parties as well as several civil society organisations and activists. They are calling for the impeachment of the CEC. There are loud demands for scrapping SIR and restoration of all the deleted names to the electoral roll.
Our public discourse is now flooded with analyses, conversations, debates and discussions about the goings on in the ECI and the conduct of the CEC in implementing the SIR. However, there are some fundamental issues and questions that need to be recovered from the current overlay on the public discourse. This is important because those fundamental issues are in danger of being buried under the current spate of commentary. They might eventually disappear from the foreground of the country’s discourse on its democratic life.
Let us begin by asking some ‘what if’ questions. What if the two ECs did not write the notes of disagreements/objections? What if the two ECs were on the same page with the CEC and the head of the IT Department of the ECI on the way the SIR was being carried out? What if the process did not call some high-profile individuals for hearings and the deletions and hearings have only targeted voiceless minorities, Adivasis, Dalits and marginalised daily wage labourers and women? What if the decision to file Form 7 for the deletion of 16 lakh voters in West Bengal was taken by keeping the two ECs in the loop and with their consent? Would all these have made the SIR an acceptable exercise?
We do find, among the responses to the investigation, remarks that say……, ‘the SIR exercise was a good one but it was implemented badly’. Even the ECI’s official response relied on this narrative to defend itself. It harped on the point that all the Commissioners were unanimous in their decision to implement the process. One fundamental question in its response and in the public discourse in this controversy remains unaddressed. The ECI’s response to a query under Right to Information by an activist clearly stated in writing that the decision to carry out SIR was not taken in the Commission. The ECI has not said anything to disown that response from its own high-level official.
The most important issues in the discourse ought to remain not about the procedural aspects of the implementation of the SIR but what it is essentially tasked to do to the nature of India’s political society. We should not lose sight of the massive, targeted disenfranchisement which would create two classes of Indians, one with franchise and the other without franchise. It ought to be an important concern that as many as 14 crore names would be deleted from the electoral rolls in the wake of SIR, making them lose their legitimate right to participate in the political process even as they continue to reside in the country. This, in effect, makes them second class Indians.
From the massive overlay of the fallout from the investigative report on the present discourse, one should not lose sight of the rampant irregularities in the way elections were conducted during at least the last eight years, if not more. Some of the politically consequential irregularities are: The irrational phasing of polling in different states; partisan implementation of the Model Code of Conduct that allowed the ruling party’s star campaigners to freely make hate speeches; inordinate delay in declaring the final percentage of votes polled; the unprecedented discrepancy between the preliminary percentage of polling and the delayed declaration of final figures of polling; massive suspected spurious injection of votes both in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the subsequently held state assembly polls; the glaring discrepancy between the number of votes polled as declared after the polling and the number of votes recovered from the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) during the 2024 LS counting (in other words, the discrepancy between the numbers in Form 17C and Form 20); the fact that the final percentage of votes of the seventh and final phase of polling of votes were declared after the results of the Lok Sabha polls were announced and the winners declared; unusual, and unexplained increase in the number of voters just before the assembly polls in some states.
About all these irregularities, however, we are yet to learn of any rift in the Commission. Of course, we cannot rule out its possibility. There might have been. But it is yet to come to light. Until something comes out, we need to assume that the full body of the Commission was on the same page.
The ongoing SIR is not merely about helping a particular party win an election; it points to a much deeper design – to create a customised electorate in the country. It is intended to turn India into a Republic in which only some sections of the population remain politically relevant. Those sections are non-minority, non-Dalit, non-Adivasi and non-marginalised. The demand for scrapping the SIR should stem from this understanding, and not merely on the basis of the irregularities of its implementation.
(Dr Parakala Prabhakar is a political economist. Views are personal.)
