Threat Must Have Worked, Therefore The 2 ECs Kept Quiet

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar with Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. 'If the Chief Election Commissioner recommends their removal the President of India can remove them.'

'The Election Commission is totally independent of the government.' 'The Election Commission cannot do centralisation of data.'

'The burden of proof was never on the citizen. This time they have changed it and burden of proof is on the citizen.

 

The Election Commission of India is facing perhaps its most serious institutional scrutiny in recent years following an investigation by The Indian Express that has brought to light repeated objections recorded by two of the three Election Commissioners, Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, to decisions taken by the poll panel over the past 10 months.

The Indian Express on September 23 reported that Dr Sandhu and Joshi had formally objected on record at least 14 times, raising concerns over issues at the heart of the electoral process -- including changes to Form 6 for new voters, deletion and restoration of names from electoral rolls, and the increasing centralisation of the electoral-roll database through the Commission's technology systems.

The report also detailed how the two Commissioners had described certain changes to Form 6 as 'unauthorised' and 'illegal', and questioned whether statutory field-level election officials were being bypassed by a centralised software system.

The former chief election commissioner O P Rawat, who offered his perspective on how the Election Commission should have handled the reported differences among the three Election Commissioners, whether such disagreements should be made more transparent to the public, and what Constitutional authorities should do when they have serious reservations about the decisions being taken by the Commission.

If you were the Chief Election Commissioner today, what would you do?

I would have called both the election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, and try to resolve all their grievances and misgivings.

Bring them on board, and all three of us would have gone to address a press conference where every issue would be discussed threadbare with the media so the public can be informed objectively and fairly.

The Election Commission has given a clarification that differing views are part of the decision-making process. Is that explanation good enough?

This is good enough as it comes from the Election Commission, from all the three commissioners.

But if, after that clarification, doubts are still persisting, then you to come together in front of the media and tell the whole world.

Do you feel Dr Sandhu and Mr Joshi should come out in public and speak against CEC Gyanesh Kumar, which they have not done till date. What do you think prevents them from doing so?

One of the interviews that I read, where the person said there is a threat to these two election commissioners' post, and if the Chief Election Commissioner recommends their removal the President of India can remove them.

This threat must have worked and therefore they kept quiet and didn't come out in the open and spoke.

This also deterred them from going to the President of India, which was the right forum for these two election commissioners to complain instead of going to the Cabinet Secretary or writing letters.

Election Commissioners are Constitutional authorities and they are not supposed to go to the Cabinet secretary.

They are not supposed to write letters.

And if they are aggrieved, they should straight go to the President of India.

EC's Independence and Role

Former CEC T N Seshan once famously said he worked for the government but he was not 'under' the government.

That is exactly what I am saying, the Election Commission is totally independent of the government.

They work under the President of India. In fact, their leave or tour pogramme is sanctioned by the President of India.

Can you explain what was the amendment done to Form 6 for new voters? What was the norm earlier, and what new thing did the ECI introduce?

It existed for old voters. Suppose a 40-year-old new voter comes for registration, doubts come to mind whether he is an illegal immigrant or a foreigner as he was never a voter in India.

For such an old voter, in Form 6 there is a second part where his parents' and grandparents' details were asked, to ensure that he is from India and an eligible voter.

The same provision has now been applied for new voters too, which is causing all these problems because Form 6 cannot be amended by the Election Commission of India as they are not the competent authority.

It has to be amended by rules and it can be amended only by the government, that is the law ministry.

So was it a mistake to ask an 18-year-old new voter details of his/her parents and grandparents in Form 6 in the current SIR?

So long as nobody questioned it, is not a mistake because the Election Commission is a very powerful organisation.

In 1982, they used the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) in Kerala which was questioned in the Supreme Court of India.

And after the hearing the Supreme Court annulled that EVM election and told the EC to conduct a re-poll with ballot papers.

Rules were not amended then to accommodate the EVM.

So unless someone goes to court and points out that Form 6 has been amended without amending the rules, only then can courts annul them.

The Supreme Court supported the ECI so where do citizens go as 13 crore voter names have been deleted in SIR across the country?

Actually, for deletion, things are very different. For deletions there are forums.

There is 1st appeal, 2nd appeal and if that fails you can go to court.

This is happening. In West Bengal also appeals were decided and 93 percent voters who were deleted won in appeals and were found to be eligible voters.

Those forums have to be approached.

Centralisation of Voting Machinery

Have we come from a decentralised system to one person controlling the entire voting machinery because of the new software ECI Netapp introduced by the Election Commission?

Absolutely no -- for some time when security threat is there you can do it.

But you cannot do it permanently because this database needs to be accessed by so many statutory authorities for addition and deletion.

So the Election Commission cannot do centralisation of data.

Is universal adult franchise over in India? Because, even the Supreme Court of India didn't intervene on the issue of SIR.

Universal adult franchise is Article 326 of the Constitution which says that all those people who are eligible and live in India, they are eligible voters and they have to register to vote.

The Election Commission has been following this rule so far and the burden of proof was never on the citizen.

This time they have changed it and burden of proof is on the citizen.

In your opinion, why did they change this rule and put the burden of proof on the citizen?

This is because there was a lot of hue and cry over illegal immigrants in the country.

Therefore he (Gyanesh Kumar) might have thought we can use this.

But even political leaders like former deputy PM L K Advani's name was unmapped in SIR. How can the EC be so callous?

That is a different issue and is a logical discrepancy.

Earlier, for logical discrepancy the EC was always assessing the level of education of their manpower in the field, like BLOs etc.

What kind of mistakes they could commit, after which they would remove all kinds of logical discrepancy which are normally committed because of the level of education of the BLO.

And only then will they do this logical discrepancy exercise.

This time that has not been done. So even a slight spelling mistake by the BLO is throwing up a notice and they have issued all these notices, for which they got publicity.

This is just lack of basic preparation before unleashing the logical discrepancy software.

Addressing Voter Deletions and Database Control

In Goa, in 97 cases the ground election officer felt that deleted voters must be restored and even the Supreme Court said yes. But the ECINet app gave no access to ground election officers to restore these voters.

The Election Commission must change it because the EC cannot centralise control of database by giving it only to the director general of information technology (DG-IT).

That is wrong. They must change it.

Somebody must approach them and they will do the change. And if they don't do it, you can go to the court.