India is heading towards an electoral crisis. And if this crisis is not dealt with in time then India’s election process will lose its legitimacy and consequently, India’s democracy will be in peril. This question has become serious after the Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana. These are the two states where the INDIA alliance was expected to win easily, but the results have stunned members of the Opposition and civil society. Even political pundits and pollsters are astounded and shocked. Now, the Congress party officially has decided to raise the issue of alleged manipulations in electoral process.
The party and its alliance partners in Maharashtra, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) were dismayed with the margin of victory for Mahayuti and the success rate of the BJP in particular. Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut, in fact, within two hours of counting had questioned the veracity of the results and hinted that there was something wrong with the EVMs. Congress leaders also joined the chorus and alleged that the EVMs have been manipulated or hacked, though no evidence was offered. Social media has witnessed a few visuals in which members of a village in Maharashtra were protesting that though the village was a supporter of the Congress, the results did not reflect that. Now Sharad Pawar has also said that democracy is being undermined by the electoral process.
Similar sentiments were expressed after the Haryana assembly elections. This was the election in which everyone — including BJP leaders of the state — had predicted a huge victory for the Congress, but results were totally contradictory. The BJP leaders who were demoralised in the morning of the counting day could not believe their eyes when by 10am trends projected a big win for the party. Privately, many leaders and political analysts confessed to the author that there was something wrong, but no one had proof. The Congress held a press conference and declared that the Haryana results were not acceptable to the party. When I asked a few Congress leaders if the party would do something then I was told that it was serious about the issue and was weighing the pros and cons. Meanwhile the Congress got busy with the Maharashtra elections. But the same story has been repeated in Maharashtra too. And now the Congress has decided to make it a national issue and instead of blaming the EVMs, the whole elections process will be questioned.
This is not a good situation for the country to be in. Questioning the legitimacy of the EVM is very old. BJP stalwart L K Advani had raised serious questions about the EVM just after the defeat of the BJP in the 2009 general elections. He not only held a press conference but also wrote an introduction when his party colleague J V L Narasimha wrote a book about the efficacy of the EVM. It was a BJP MP, Subramaniam Swamy, who took the EVM issue to Supreme Court and consequently the Supreme Court had ordered that VVPAT should be used along with the EVM to annul any doubt about the functioning of the machine. But the controversy continued. Even as recent as last week a petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court saying that “no question is raised when one wins an election”.
The argument, that a large section of left liberals finds it difficult to digest the fact that Modi is at the helm of affair of the country for the last ten years or so and they find reason to discredit his electoral achievement, has some basis but it is not the whole truth.
It is also a fact that there are a few elections whose results are difficult to comprehend. When, soon after demonetisation, more than a hundred citizens died standing in queues to get their money from the banks and ATMs to run their households and the whole country had to face untold misery due to withdrawal of 85% currency from the daily circulation, the BJP won 312 seats in the UP assembly election in 2017. The scale of the BJP’s victory in UP was unprecedented and many political pundits were astounded by its success. For them the victory defied logic. Similarly after the MP and Chhattisgarh elections in December 2023, in which BJP won with a massive margin when there was almost a consensus that the BJP would lose both the states, there was disbelief and questions were raised whether the EVMs were manipulated to ensure a BJP victory. The BJP and the Election Commission rubbished these charges. It is also true that except for anecdotal experiences no concrete proof was ever offered to prove that EVMs had been manipulated.
But it is also true that a large section of the voters subscribe to the idea that there is something wrong with the EVM. During the parliamentary elections CSDS asked voters a question if the ruling party can manipulate EVM to win elections, and the results are for everyone to see — 17% said that EVM can be manipulated, 28% were of the opinion that EVM can be manipulated upto a certain extent whereas 11% responded that not much can be done. Only, 16% were convinced that EVM can’t be manipulated. Data shows that approximately 56% respondents had doubts about the integrity of the electronic voting machines. This is a huge number and it should be a matter of serious worry, but neither the Election Commission nor the central government took this seriously. They in fact rejected it with contempt every time the Opposition or members of civil society raised the question. Their accusations and allegations were never answered with alacrity by the EC. The EC did not even give an audience to six Opposition parties including the Congress when they petitioned the commission to apprise it of their complaints in person. In fact the Commission’s replies have been like a political party’s press release. The language of the EC has been so atrocious that an outraged Congress said it could go to court to get EC’s comments expunged.
The EC’s conduct is alarming. It seems that for the EC, the Opposition has no role to play in a democracy. For the EC the opposition is not a stakeholder at all, and only the ruling party that is the BJP is a legitimate player in the elections. The Opposition has been aghast to see that EC made no effort to stop the brazen communal campaign in the Parliamentary elections. The prime minister openly called Muslims ‘infiltrators’ but the EC maintained a royal silence. In one of the most bizarre steps, for the first time in India’s electoral history, the EC did not issue notice to the offenders, that is the prime minister and Rahul Gandhi but to the presidents of respective parties that is the BJP and the Congress. If T N Seshan or James Lyngdoh had been the chief election commissioner, many BJP leader would have been taken to task, a few would have lost their voting rights and some others might have ended in jail for creating enmity between communities. A leader like Balasaheb Thackeray was arrested and lost his voting right for six years.
The EC is there to provide a level playing field to all the contestants and parties. The EC in the last few years has brazenly sided with the government. It entertains no complains against the opposition parties and answers no questions. In Parliamentary elections and later in Assembly elections serious anomalies have been witnessed between the votes polled and votes counted, but EC did not make any effort to explain the reason. That is why today the EC’s credibility and integrity is being questioned and it is being said that the umpire who is expected to play fair is playing on behalf of the ruling party.
The EC has to realise that the Opposition is a stakeholder in democracy and its voice has to be heard, and if it raises a question which might be embarrassing to the commission, it has no option but to answer it. Because if the questions are not answered with robustness then slowly but surely, the entire electoral process will get affected and its credibility, authenticity and integrity will be damaged, and there will come a time when people will lose faith in the whole election process. That will be the death of democracy. The Election Commission is playing with fire.
Seshan and Lyngdoh were appointed by the government but they did not serve the government of the day or the party which was instrumental in their appointment. They kept allegiance to the Constitution, and they were true to their oath. Their loyalty was to democracy; they were not loyal to power, they were not scared of the high constitutional authority. Their names were enough to make big leaders tremble. They served with dignity and fairness, that is why they are remembered. I leave it to history to write its judgment on the incumbent EC.
The writer is Co-Founder, SatyaHindi.com, and author of Hindu Rashtra. He tweets at @ashutosh83B
