EC fumbles in TN, greater transparency needed for re-polls

The clumsy manner in which the Election Commission has gone about the task of ordering re-polling in 13 booths across Tamil Nadu on May 19 had fuelled rumour-mongering and wild allegations about “manipulation” of EVMs by the ruling AIADMK with the assistance of the BJP-led NDA  at the Centre. All that had happened was that empty EVMs were being shifted to centres where repoll would be held.

Three days ago, more than 50 EVMs stationed at the Coimbatore counting centre were suddenly moved by the election department without any warning or intimation to Theni and Erode in Tamil Nadu. This prompted the opposition parties to charge that the EVMs were moved to help the AIADMK Theni candidate win the polls. It is to be noted that AIADMK has fielded  P Raveendranath Kumar, son of the deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam, in Theni. Social media was agog with allegations of “tampering and manipulation”, while the Theni Congress candidate, EVKS Elangovan, went to the extent of charging OPS with resorting to irregularities.

It was only the next day that state CEO, Satyabrata Sahoo, clarified that the Election Commission has ordered repolling in 13 booths in Tamil Nadu, including in Theni and Erode, and that empty EVMs, lodged with the EC in Coimbatore, had been moved to hold the re-polls.

Conspiracy theories

The EC has only itself to blame for the conspiracy theory about a plan to manipulate the EVMs. There should have been greater transparency and timely communication about the move to shift EVMs from Coimbatore to Theni two days ago. In fact, the announcement about the re-polling should have been made before the shifting of EVMs. The local candidates should have been taken into confidence about the measure.

Instead, in the absence of any communication from the EC, the sudden shifting of EVMs and that too to Theni, where Pannerselvam’s son, is contesting the Lok Sabha poll, set tongues wagging about the motives of the EC. The announcement by the CEO on the re-poll came a day too late. Meanwhile, stories went viral about how Panneerselvam met PM Narendra Modi in Varanasi and sought his help to ensure the victory of his son in the LS poll. A Varanasi link, attributing it to the PM too, went viral as well.

The EC has only itself to blame for the conspiracy theory about a plan to manipulate the EVMs. There should have been greater transparency and timely communication about the move to shift EVMs from Coimbatore to Theni two days ago

The CEO had announced a day earlier that there were errors in 46 booths. However, the re-poll was ordered for only 13 booths, the opposition parties pointed out, maintaining that the EC was contradicting itself on every issue regarding the re-poll exercise.

Not the first time

This is not the first time that re-poll has been ordered in Tamil Nadu. In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, re-poll was held in two booths in Salem and Namakkal district due to complaints of technical glitches with the EVMs when elections were held on April 24. In fact, repolling was also held ironically at Edappadi in the Salem parliamentary constituency on May 15 owing to an EVM failure on April 24.

It is strange that incidents of booth capture should have been allowed in Dharmapuri Lok Sabha constituency, allegedly by the PMK workers,  when these booths were already identified by the EC as sensitive and prone to booth-capture. That the police and booth officials looked the other way is shocking. One can only hope that free and fair polling would be held here on May 19.

Re-polling has also been ordered in parts of Tripura, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and so on.  Repolling could also be held in more booths of West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh where the last two phases of the elections would be held. It is quite possible that bypolls would be held in these two states even after May 19, could be between May 20 and 21, in any case at least a couple of days before counting would commence on May 23.