Why EC's reconciliation statement reads more like a confession

The meeting between Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, on Saturday (September 26), was ostensibly called to convey an armistice amid the uproar triggered by recent revelations of dissent within the poll panel.

However, the desperate bid to gloss over the raging controversy has ended up confirming faultlines within the EC while feeding the Opposition’s frenzy for Kumar’s ouster.

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The three top poll panel officials refrained from addressing the media and, instead, took refuge in issuing a press statement through the commission’s Deputy Director, P Pawan. Unfortunately for the trio, the statement meant to quell the row not only raises more prickly questions for both the Narendra Modi government, which has been stridently defending the CEC, and the poll panel.

For, the press statement practically confirms the reports published by the Indian Express earlier this week about long-brewing disagreements between the CEC and the two ECs over the former’s steering of the poll panel.

EC statement's 'self-goals'

The Indian Express exposé had averred to Sandhu and Joshi’s unease over Kumar’s unilateral decision-making on various aspects of the SIR, which were then being allegedly passed on as unanimous decisions of the full commission. After their meeting on Saturday, it was decided that, henceforth, “for all Commission’s meeting, agenda will be circulated in advance and minutes will be issued”.

That the commission had to quite literally spell this out in a statement confirms that this was not being done under Kumar’s tenure as the CEC so far — a grievance that Sandhu and Joshi had raised per the Indian Express report.

So, is the EC saying all of this was done while there was a doubt on whether your systems and software were complying with the laws: Yogendra Yadav

Similarly, the decision of the Commission today to constitute a committee “headed by Sr. Deputy Election Commissioner and including an independent expert from IIT/IIIT” to review the ECINET to “double-check that it complies with the provisions of the Acts and Rules” confirms reports of serious departures being made from established legal provisions and process during the SIR against which the two poll commissioners had reportedly raised multiple red-flags.

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“What more confirmation do you need about rules and laws not being followed when the official statement of the Election Commission itself says a committee needs to examine and double-check compliance; the SIR process has been completed in 20 states and Union Territories and is ongoing in another 12. So, is the EC saying all of this was done while there was a doubt on whether your systems and software were complying with the laws?” wondered activist Yogendra Yadav.

Delayed actions

The commission has also announced that moving forward “all new initiatives about IT modules and portals will be discussed in the Committee of Officers before approval by the Commission”.

Clearly, today's meeting was about Kumar making some concessions to the sulking Sandhu and Joshi in the hope that the blitz of political pushback from a united Opposition and its demand — for not just the CEC’s immediate resignation but also his arrest — will lose its sting.

Sources told The Federal that filing a fresh notice in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha demanding Kumar’s removal as CEC continues to be a priority for the Opposition’s INDIA bloc.

Yet, the truce wasn’t only about Kumar retreating some steps. On matters where the SIR’s exclusionary processes can be electorally weaponised by the ruling dispensation, Sandhu and Joshi too seem to have come on board using contentious Supreme Court rulings as a convenient excuse.

The Form 6 row

A running grouse of the Opposition has been with the manner in which rules for Form 6, used for new voter registration, were arbitrarily changed under Kumar’s direction allegedly to benefit the BJP while the SIR, per se, was being used to disenfranchise voters. The Opposition had also taken exception to the restricted access that BLOs and EROs were given to ECINET despite being the commission’s boots on the ground for the voter roll revisions.

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These reservations were also among the points of dissent raised by Sandhu and Joshi too, according to the Indian Express report. However, on Saturday, the duo signed off on the view that the declaration attached to Form 6 for SIR “has been upheld by the Hon’ble Supreme Court”.

On the question of the BLOs and EROs, they seemed to have found a middle ground with Kumar to decide that field officers will have only “role-based access to the ECINET system as per their statutory powers.”

No clean exit for Modi govt

For Prime Minister Modi’s government, which made itself complicit in the row by throwing the doctrine of separation of powers out the window and speaking incessantly as the CEC’s defending counsel, the statement offers no clean exit from the controversy even if it may help rein in allies like LJP-RV chief Chirag Paswan, RLM president Upendra Kushwaha and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP who had, a day earlier, asked the EC to clarify its position.

The Opposition continues to be up in arms and has only redoubled its calls for Kumar’s head.

Sources told The Federal that filing a fresh notice in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha demanding Kumar’s removal as CEC continues to be a priority for the Opposition’s INDIA bloc. The bloc is already in talks to convene a conclave of its top leadership, possibly on September 30, to chart a “sustained and nationwide joint campaign against the BJP hijacking democracy through the Election Commission”.

CPI(M) general secretary MA Baby has also written to leaders of various Opposition parties to “meet and discuss how we plan to respond to this extraordinary situation”. Interestingly, among the first leaders to respond favourable to Baby’s request was Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, a bitter arch-rival of the Left parties.

'No denial of Indian Express report'

Stressing the poll panel “does not directly deny the (Indian Express) story or its findings”, Congress communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh said the press note issued by the EC “seeks to justify the Commission’s actions by appealing to the Order of the Supreme Court” even though the said order, dated May 27, “was pronounced well before the recent revelations”.

Ramesh asserted that the order the EC was referring to “will not save the CEC for the malicious deletion of targeted voters, for the incompetence that has resulted in citizens being wiped off the roles, for the crores lost in both expenses and man-hours due to the confusion and harassment caused to entire families.”

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The Congress also claimed that the “EC has no answer for its targeted disenfranchisement...through wholly illegal changes made to Form 6” which were unseen and unapproved by Parliament.

In a statement, the Congress party said, “The revelations regarding (1) the unilateral nature of decision-making by the CEC, (2) his open hatred and bias against the Opposition resulting in a clear bias, (3) his willing participation and abetment in Vote Chori by the ruling regime, (4) his specific attack to prevent the enrolment of Gen Z voters, (5) his corruption exposed ironically by his negligence in purging and pruning voter lists, need to be answered for,” and stressed that Kumar “stands exposed and is now petrified as an entire country seeks to hold him accountable... nothing short of the CEC’s resignation or prosecution will suffice.”