(Anita Saluja)
Any leader or party is known for its credibility. If credibility is gone, his charisma and personality is also shattered in pieces. It is often said that Justice should not only be done, but should be seen to be done. In India, for the past, many instances have been happening which has eroded the credibility of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was often charged with manipulating or dictating the Independent Institutions like the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI. We have seen how the Opposition leaders were framed in false cases and had to spend months and years in the Jail. In Delhi, AAP leaders are the best example where almost the whole Cabinet was put behind bars including the then Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. When nothing was found against them, they were set free, but it was too late as they could hardly campaign for their party or themselves in the Delhi elections. Similarly, ED has hardly spared any political opponent of the BJP in several States, framing them under the disproportionate assets. Many MPs and MLAs from different parties switched sides to the BJP during elections, fearing frivolous charges under CBI and ED.
If this was not enough, the BJP government has crossed all limits now to dare to manipulate Assembly and Lok Sabha elections with the help of the Election Commission, which is supposed to be an autonomous body. India is known to be the largest democracy in the world. We used to feel proud that in our country, ballots are cast and not manipulated. This used to be a trend till 2014. But gradually, this assumption is also getting blurred. No longer can we say that “we have free & fair elections” in our country. Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who was always in doubt, has exposed the malicious functioning of the Election Commission, where duplicate and multiple votes were cast in one name and where in one small room in Karnataka, around 80 fake votes were cast. None of the voters were present in any of the addresses mentioned in the electoral list of the Election Commission. One lakh excess votes just in one Assembly segment of Mahadevapura gave the BJP an unassailable lead. Even though the BJP lost in all the remaining seven Assembly segments, the Saffron Party went on to bag Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha seat.
No wonder that everyone was amazed not only with the Lok Sabha election results in 2024 but also in the Assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra.
Rahul Gandhi’s claim that elections are being manipulated has been substantiated and proved by him. No doubt, all his alliance partners in various States have the same belief, the reason they have all joined hands to hold demonstrations and court arrest in a big way. NCP leader Sharad Pawar recalled how he was approached by his opponents that if his party joined hands with them, they are sure to get 200 seats. He wondered how this person was sure that they would get around 200 votes. Now, he said, it became clear to him that they do indeed manipulate votes.
It was a show of strength in Delhi, where around 300 MPs held demonstrations and courted arrest on their way to the office of Election Commission. Surprisingly, the EC has no answers to the charges made by the Congress leader. Unless EC comes with reasonable answers, the Opposition is not going to sit quietly. Moreover, this is happening, prior to the Bihar Assembly elections where the EC was going ahead with the SIR (Special Intensive Revision) of the Electoral rolls. This hasty, arbitrary and whimsical SIR aims at helping BJP win through dubious means, through back door, the Bihar Assembly elections. With this move, nearly 40 per cent of Bihar’s voting population faces disenfranchisement. It seeks to delete names of Dalits, OBCs, Adivasis and Minorities, who generally do not vote for the BJP.
Ironically, when a demonstration was taking place in front of Parliament and MPs were courting arrest, the BJP was simultaneously holding a press conference to defend the Election Commission. It would have been better, if they were quiet and instead addressed the apprehensions and worries of the Opposition parties. In fact, they should ask the EC to address all the queries of the law makers so that no one remains in doubt that they have been elected the right way and not through dubious means.
Election process comprises Notification, Nomination, Campaigning, Polling and Counting of Votes. At every stage, there are manipulations. Notification, with which the process of filing of nominations commences, is issued in consultation with the Centre. Dates are decided by the ruling party to suit their convenience, so that they can make their announcements to lure the people before the Model Code of Conduct comes into force. During the campaign, all the grievances of the ruling party are addressed while no action is taken against them unlike the Opposition MPs. The voting time is extended, depending on the whims & fancies of the ruling dispensation.
It was in February 2024 that the Mayoral polls of Chandigarh were termed illegal by the Supreme Court, when the Returning Officer was seen defacing the votes of the Congress and the AAP in order to make the BJP candidate victorious. The Nation saw on TV, how blatantly the winning candidate Kuldeep Yadav of the AAP was defeated by the Returning Officer of the BJP. In fact, the cheating is done by the officers to get some monetary reward or a respectable position in the government. Unless this trend is not stopped, corruption of the electoral system will continue to deface the nation.
Everyone is aware how the voters are lured before elections by all the parties with either liquor or monetary gains. The EC has come out with its own rules to prevent lavish funding by the candidates in elections though spending around 10 crores in Lok Sabha and 5 crores in Assembly elections is the minimum expenditure which every candidate has to bear. But, when EC itself becomes a tool in the hands of the government, then elections will lose all its relevance. Even at present, there is a low percentage of voting in the urban areas, as people are losing hope in the political parties. But if EC credibility is lost, then no one will come to cast their franchise.
OUR DEMOCRACY WILL BE GONE FOR EVER….
(Writer is Delhi-based Senior Journalist and Political Commentator. Views are personal.)