Ahead of UP polls, why did Gyanesh Kumar skip Meerut visit twice? There are no answers

Embattled Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar has reportedly been avoiding a visit to Meerut. He was scheduled to be there on Monday (November 2) to review the preparedness for the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Local officials in Meerut and their peers from 17 other nearby districts were expected to brief the CEC about their readiness to hold the polls within the stipulated time frame (or by February next year).

These districts fall in four large commissionerates—Meerut, Saharanpur, Moradabad and Aligarh—stretching over a vast part of western Uttar Pradesh, in which elections were held in phases in the past.

But strangely, Kumar did not show up to take the crucial meeting. Instead, he deputed Senior Deputy Election Commissioner (DEC) Maneesh Garg to check, test, and feel the ground before the polls.

Caught in SIR fire

Such a turn in an otherwise important election-related meeting is unusual and may aggravate the controversies over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls already surrounding the Election Commission (EC).

Also read: SIR row: Is Election Commission facing crisis of competence or intent?

SIR faces multiple challenges in Supreme Court where several petitioners, including Opposition and civil society members, have alleged that the entire exercise is Gyanesh Kumar’s idea, which hasn’t received the complete endorsement of his fellow Election Commissioners—Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.

All the three commissioners are supposed to have equal powers in all important decisions, which they are expected to take either through consensus or by a majority.

Is EC still a divided house?

If the absence of Gyanesh Kumar from the Meerut meeting is seen in the backdrop of recent differences between the CEC and the other two commissioners, it can be argued that the three are still not on the same page even on crucial matters. In the past, the three commissioners have customarily visited election-bound states together.

The onus to hold preparatory discussions with state authorities before holding polls, therefore, seems to have fallen upon the deputy election commissioner. This virtually reduces the EC to a divided house, placing the CEC in an odd position.

Also read: ‘Can any process cause such misery?’: Voters share stories, flag SIR flaws at Delhi hearing

This writer made efforts to elicit the EC’s response on the issue by sending an email on Tuesday and making a couple of phone calls to CEC’s office. All he got was a response that the “mail has been forwarded to the concerned officer for Uttar Pradesh”.

The person taking the call in Gyanesh Kumar’s office did not identify himself. When asked why the email was directed to another officer when it was addressed to the CEC’s office, the cryptic response was, “The mail is forwarded to concerned officer for Uttar Pradesh—Manish Garg.” The call was snapped abruptly.

Uncomfortable questions

In September, Gyanesh Kumar’s proposed visit to Meerut, scheduled two days after an Indian Express expose, was cancelled. His planned visit to Chattisgarh, too, was cancelled. Lately, the CEC has rarely been seen in public or in media. More importantly, the three commissioners are not seen together at all.

Since the CEC’s office is clouded in controversies, it is not clear how it has affected the inner functioning of the country’s top electoral authority that is expected to carry out the constitutional responsibilities vested on it. There are so far no clear answers.