In India it is almost a given that politicians are not to be trusted. But hitherto the public has always placed a great deal of confidence in the Chief Election Commissioners.
Their task is to ensure that this flawed democracy we call home still holds free and fair elections with all the challenges that come with such an exercise in a violent, often lawless country of 1.4 billion people.
So, it is deeply disturbing that the Election Commission of India (ECI) is facing a crisis of credibility, which is not the first, after a series of fresh allegations of irregularities against its chief, Gyanesh Kumar.
The ECI is one of the most trusted public institutions in the world’s largest democracy, second perhaps only to the Supreme Court.
Gyanesh Kumar has been the CEC since February last year. The three-member Election Commission also includes Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi as Commissioners.
There are many controversies raging around the ECI, not least of which is the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) that is making its way through the states, including here in Meghalaya.
The commission has been accused by opposition parties of working with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to exclude eligible voters who would be less likely to vote BJP, such as Muslims. This has been rigorously denied by Kumar and the BJP apparatus.
But a hugely damaging report in the Indian Express has exposed that both Sandhu and Joshi have expressed their concerns over the integrity of the voter database, changes to the way new voters are enrolled and the security of the electoral rolls itself.
The report said that Sandhu and Joshi objected to several decisions that were taken without their knowledge – there were at least 14 times in the past 10 months when they were kept in the dark, it added.
In one instance, the report says, the two commissioners even wrote a letter complaining to the central government’s Chief Secretary.
The ECI has tried to paper over the report by saying that different views are normal in the decision-making process.
From the very beginning, the fairness of the SIR process has been questioned, especially as it was undertaken seemingly in a hurry in states just before crucial elections, such as most recently in West Bengal. The winner, for the very first time in the state’s history, was the BJP.
During the ongoing SIR, 13 crore names have been struck off the voter rolls so far. Lakhs of voters have also complained to the authorities that their names are missing, saying the new process to register as voters is too cumbersome and involves providing documents that many do not possess.
Naturally, opposition parties have jumped on the Express report as proof of their claims that Kumar is failing in his role and that is to be expected. However, there is still no evidence that Kumar took specific steps for the interest of the BJP.
Nevertheless, even without such a smoking gun, having the CEC under such a heavy cloud of suspicion cannot be good for India’s democracy. If he is to avoid resigning he must find ways to restore confidence. And that means confidence in his office, not himself – he is expendable. But once the public loses confidence in the Election Commission that will really be a terrible blow to democracy in this country.
