The Election Commission of India started rolling back controversial decisions after an investigation on September 23 showed two Election Commissioners objected to poll panel steps. The ECI now asks officers to visit homes and fix electoral rolls. Many citizens still wait for changes to Form 6 to ensure fair voting.
I remember the first protest I witnessed. An instrument had been stolen from the Chemistry laboratory in school but no student admitted to doing it. The principal pleaded in the school assembly for the guilty to come forward but to no avail. He then announced that he would fast until the culprit confessed.
Within five hours of the protest, the culprit came forward. In the assembly the next day, the principal described the student as the "hero of our school" because he had the "courage to admit his mistake". The principal's protest turned culpability into courage, making a hero of a man who pleaded guilty. Could a similar fate await the Election Commission of India (ECI) or the Election Commissioners (ECs)?
In the past few days, the ECI has made some hasty decisions that amount to admitting to its mistakes and atoning for wrongs caused by previous decisions. Is this a "change of heart" by an institution/individuals accused of heartless disenfranchisement? Is this a trail of corrective measures meant to cover its tracks and blunt the unprecedented outrage it invited?
Almost immediately after The Indian Express investigation on September 23 ('14 times in 10 months, two Election Commissioners objected on record to poll panel steps'), with the initial bland denials cutting no ice, the ECI went about rolling back some of its controversial decisions.
The changes to Form 6, characterised by one of the ECs as "illegal and unauthorised", were admitted and dropped for non-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) states. Booth level officers (BLOs) were asked to visit the homes of those notified for logical discrepancy. Technical experts were engaged to confirm if ECINet was compliant with applicable laws. Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) were directed to organise camps in the states where SIR was completed to ensure that those deleted earlier were readmitted subject to their eligibility, with the BLOs comparing the pre- and post-SIR electoral rolls to identify those deleted. (Remember, the ECI had not agreed to publish their names until ordered by the Supreme Court last year). The changes that would make Form 6 suitable for readmitting deleted electors are yet to be made. CEO Maharashtra has written to the ECI in this regard so that millions of citizens are not vulnerable to criminal liability for making a false undertaking as stipulated in the current Form 6.
Then came the order resuming the suspended Special Summary Revision (SSR), due to which millions of first-time voters were allegedly denied enrolment since the SIR exercise started. (Incidentally, the SSR is meant to "purify" and update electoral rolls by deleting the dead and those who have moved away, enrolling the "eligible" and inquiring into complaints against those allegedly "ineligible", the stated objectives of the SIR.) It is intriguing how those deleted a few months ago for "ineligibility" will now qualify for enrolment. One irrationality replacing another!
In the wake of the numerous allegations of the misuse of Form 7 by mischievous elements, the ECI has imposed restrictions on the number of objections that can be filed using this form. And finally, the ECI has accepted political parties' long-pending demand to provide machine-readable copies of the electoral rolls, something it long resisted.
These are welcome steps even if they seem like those of a warrior who retreats after inciting the battle. These may partially make up for the contentiousness of the SIR but do not account for the alleged illegalities exposed by the IE report. The mystery surrounding the over 16 lakh appeals in West Bengal remains unsolved. The ECI cannot evade responsibility for causing the disenfranchisement of millions. It spent billions on an ill-conceived and purposeless exercise that neither identified the "ineligible" nor increased the number of electors by including the "eligible", which it could have achieved following the normal revision process. What about the mass anxiety generated in ordinary citizens and BLOs engaged in an avoidable exercise at the cost of their routine work?
you may like
That still leaves us with decisions made unilaterally as opposed to the unanimous or majority decisions mandated by the law, of illegally amending Form 6 and designing a software that obstructed the Electoral Registration Officers (ERO) from performing their duties. The responsibility for these needs to be fixed. That now rests with the Court, which watched the SIR exercise unfold, occasionally providing palliatives but largely letting the ECI be a judge in its own cause.
The SC verdict on the alleged illegalities could "uphold" the decisions of the ECI as valid, frustrating the petitioners and leaving the aggrieved to find their own redress. It could rule the ECI decisions illegal and overturn them, leaving the ECI licking its wounds, a government bewildered about the next move, and a people fuming at their helplessness. Will the SC have fulfilled its responsibility by pronouncing the illegality just as it pronounced the Tamil Nadu Governor's actions unconstitutional? Will the government be willing or compelled to take note of the SC's verdict and act?
The matter now rests on collective will and individual sense of propriety. Will the CEC withdraw from official work till the Court exonerates him? Will the collective will of Parliament live up to the responsibility of acting against a constitutional authority held responsible by the SC for illegal decisions? Will the CEC/ECs continue to function in utter disregard of an adverse SC pronouncement? Equally, if exonerated by the SC, will they remain self-assured and indifferent to the unprecedented popular upsurge against them and the growing loss of trust it signifies? It was only Iago, the "deceitful wretch" in Shakespeare's Othello who could call reputation "an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving".