December 31, 2024
Many epithets have been used to describe the regime in place at the centre in India since May 2014 and it is no gratification to hear India, always a proud and growing democracy being increasingly described by international institutes as only “partly free” (Freedom House) and a “partially free electoral autocracy.” (Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute). One of the most fundamental and unique aspects of the Indian freedom movement that included within its scope vastly diverse but committed groups and ideologies who saw the exploitation of colonial rule, was the clear articulation for a “one person one vote” system, universal adult franchise.
Dr BR Ambedkar’s articulations before the Southborough Committee (2019) followed by the Motilal Nehru Report (1928) and the resultant Karachi Resolution of the Indian National Congress (1031) buffeted this clearly by ensuring that this – universal adult franchise with no ifs and buts – became a non-negotiable part of the citizenship project. Not only did this ensure the inclusion of the most marginalised castes, genders and other sections in the Indian decision making process, it also compelled political forces to formulate policies geared to the largest common good. Ambedkar’s articulations was clear when he was categorical that a democratic government was inseparable from the right to vote, and it was voting that would prove to be (one of) the harbinger(s) of political education. India moved from a restrictive 15 per cent of Indians having (limited) voting rights to universal adult franchise, driven by the transformative impetus of the national movement and the ideals of equality and non-discrimination that it threw up.
The world’s largest democracy, India, therefore beat the oldest, the United States of America (USA) when it came to inclusive enfranchisement beyond qualifications. The USA, reeling under the ignominious Jim Crow laws[1] that indirectly disenfranchised racial minorities only gave all citizens the right to vote in 1964 after a Supreme Court’s ruling in Reynolds v/s Sims. [2]
In what seems like clear regression if not an outright counter-revolution, the party and ideological forces in places since May 2014, have in their manipulation and infiltration of institutions ensured that only a skewed version of democracy exists.[3] Post 2014 India has seen a reign of ‘undeclared emergency’ marked by normalisation of terror: a rule by police (law enforcement) raids or executive fiat; where terror and fear of targeted reprisal by the executive affects normative citizens voices and actions, the concentration of brute political power with the state and economic resources with chosen corporates combined with the steady decline of the federal structure of our Constitution has led to an erasure or erosion of democratic values. Crucial institutions of governance have been seen to crumble under this pressure.
On the last day of 2024 it is time to speak only and specifically of the Election Commission of India (ECI) one such that has clearly abdicated any and every semblance of transparency and accountability. If Articles 324-326 enjoin the ECI, a constitutional body to ensure free and fair elections, these articles of the Constitution as its Preamble underline that the ECI is answerable to the Indian people alone not the government in power. Yet, election after election, especially those held after 2017 –when for the first time a standalone EVM machine was replaced by a three part system (VVPAT attached to a laptop and Symbol Loading Unit) making the EVS open to manipulation—elections have drawn sharp questions from a scattered but active citizenry. The use of hate speech, slur and vitriol by men and women in constitutional posts –including the prime minister and home minister—have gone unchecked despite election law demanding action from the ECI.[4] [5]
2024 saw these questions at their peak. From the general elections that took place in seven phases from April 19 to June 1 2024, to the Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir elections, and finally to the Maharashtra state assembly polls, the questions and anger towards the ECI has not stemmed nor stopped. Towards all these, the ECI has maintained an autocratic and obdurate silence.
Be it TN Seshan or James Lyndhoh in the past, not to mention, Yakub Qureishi these were all chief election commissioners that held governments to account. Today, the men in that position represent a stultified and manipulated Election Commission of India (ECI) that is both structurally and otherwise holding elections in an un-free and un-fair manner violating not just the Preamble of India but Articles 324-326 of the Indian Constitution. Be it in the manipulation of electoral rolls—bogus injection of voters or mass deletion of sections opposed to the BJP, or in the actual manipulation of the Electronic Voting System (EVS) through the vulnerable Symbol Loading Unit and the Microprocessors in the VVPAts. An external laptop is now connected to the Ballot Unit. Both have labile memories and ever since 2017 when the EVM stopped being a standalone unit the vulnerability of external malware changing/shifting and altering votes cast (from one to another candidate and party) began. Citizens have asked whether it is this possibility of manipulation that is behind the reluctance of the ECI/system to allow the easy checking of the actual microprocessor through independent experts.
Besides these technicalities that are being raised by concerned and active citizens along with experts every day in the public domain, the manner and absence of any transparency in the ECI’s phasing of elections, its obdurate and blind inaction against hate speech during polls (especially when delivered by the prime minister, home minister and other functionaries), its refusal to make 17 C forms public, its flouting of election law and rules by not collecting Index Cards from Returning officers, its changing of data parameters and figures made public (*from 2019 Lok Sabha, 2024 Lok Sabha, Haryana 2024 Vidhan Sabha and 2024 Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha*) makes the actions even more opaque and open to suspicion. In July 2024 the Vote for Democracy Report compiled data and analysis into a report that raised serious issues and questions that remain, to date, unanswered. [6]
On July 19, Citizens served a notice to the ECI that has, to date received no response.[7] The utter and abject refusal of the ECI to answer key questions on the conduct of free and fair elections requires us as citizens to launch grassroots campaigns for a free and fair election, demanding that “Votes Cast be those Counted”, and the removal of the present Election Commissioner. The data collected by the ECI belongs to the Indian people and ECI must function in the interests of the people and not the regime in power.
Among the key aspects of the defaulting conduct by the ECI is its continuing failure to release all data of votes polled and counted, it’s shifting and changing parameters of data release (releasing percentages of voting that too not constituency but district wise) and its over-centralisation of the process, weakening of the Returning Officers role, powers and accountability. The fact that it is the BJP party that has emerged victorious in many if not all the elections as the process because more obscure has not helped matters.
In the latter part of 2023, in his Paper titled “Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy,” (2023) scholar Sabyasachi Das, formerly of the Ashoka University who studied the 2019 General Election to Parliament, says that electoral manipulation can take place at the stage of voter registration (registration manipulation) or at the time of voting or counting (turnout manipulation). Both the recently conducted Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha elections (November 2024) and the upcoming Delhi state elections (2025) have been marked by serious allegations of mass deletions of legitimate voters and significant additions of possibly “bogus voters.” Between April-June 2024 and November 2024, ECI’s own figures show a 41 lakh increase in voters in the states. The opposition Congress has alleged that the seats that benefitted from this unusual and unaccounted increase benefitted the ruling combine. No coherent answer to the detailed representation has come from the ECI.
Das’ 2023 analysis showed how, at the time of voter registration, manipulation is also done in the form of targeted deletion of names of voters who are unlikely to vote for the incumbent party. At the time of voting, polling officers can strategically discriminate against registered voters, who are likely to vote against the ruling dispensation. Manipulation can take place at the time of counting of votes due to confusion created by variations in voter turnout data and percentages as well as weak or prejudiced monitoring by counting observers appointed by the ECI who are from the State Civil Service (SCS), as opposed to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) especially those coming from beneficiary states who are pliable. Both these manipulations allegedly happened in the 2024 election also and ECI neither took preventive steps, nor acted upon the many complaints sent to them.
Other questions that are blowing in the wind, answered and unaddressed are:
- Several candidates who lost by narrow margins have complained of a 99 per cent battery in the EVM machine when counting started in certain booths that is unlikely given the battery usage for polling on polling day
- There have been no answers for mismatch in Form 17C and final results displayed by CU (even if one machine shows this anomaly) –Lok Sabha polls
- The ECI has no answers as to why it did not disclose the ABSOLUTE NUMBERS in the first 2 phases of Lok Sabha 2024
- There was no explanation given for unexplained and sudden power cuts during counting
- There was no explanation given for –in certain cases—EVMs being taken out of strong rooms
- There has been no explanation for ruling party candidates accessing mobile phones used by DEOs feeding the data in the ENCORE APP
- There has been absolutely no explanation or answer given for the high, absurdly illogical and abnormal rise in Voter Turn Out (VTR) percentage over two to more days before counting. (In earlier elections pre-2019 this percentage did not vary beyond 1-2 per cent). With the general elections 2024 and state elections this year variations have been from 6-11 per cent!
- There have been no answers foe the ECI’s inaction for its inaction against prime minister, Narendra Modi’s communal slurs during the Lok Sabha 2024 polls and his open fluting of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and provisions of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951
- No answers for the sharp increase and addition of voters between GE 2024 and Maharashtra Elections 2024
- No answers for the time allowed to the Shinde-Fadnavis-Pawar Government to pay the instalments of freebies to the voters August to October 2024
- No answers for the valid questions raised by technical experts regarding vulnerability of VVPAT, due to its connection with the internet and its potentially dubious role in transferring spurious or manipulated votes to the Counting Unit (CUY)
- No answers as to whether the ECI is in independent control of the Source code in the EVS Unit and why this cannot be made public
- No answers as to why BJP’s members are on the Board of Directors of Government Companies viz. ECIL and BEL, which manufacture the EVMs
Rules that empower citizens and candidates
- Under Rule 32(b) of the Registration of Electors Rules (RER), 1960, the authenticated printed copy of the electoral roll is available at the District Election Officer, on a permanent basis.
- As per Rule 31(e) of the RER, 1960, all the related papers which led to the revision of the electoral rolls viz. enumeration pads, copies of the roll used for house-to house verification, manuscripts prepared on the basis thereof, claims and objections and applications for correction of entries and transposition of entries (Forms 6, 6A, 7, 8 and 8A), and all papers connected with their disposal, shall be retained for at least three years after next revision of electoral rolls.
- As per the Rule 33, the Electoral Rolls and connected papers, as mentioned above, are open for inspection for any person, on payment of the stipulated fee. These rules are not amended and can be used to verify the issues in question.
For India and Indians to celebrate our democracy, we must insist that these questions are answered, that the Election Commission of India bows to the questions raised by the We the People of India. If a weak and confused Opposition flounders, citizens and independent media need to carry the flag. Of Resistance and Accountability.
Happy New Year. Welcome 2025.
[1] The Jim Crow laws were a body of discriminatory legislation, state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation. ‘Jim Crow’ is a perjorative term used for African Americans. The last of the Jim Crow laws were overturned in 1965.
[2] Before this, The Warren Court’s decisions on two previous landmark cases—Baker v/s Carr (1962) and Wesberry v Sanders (1964)—also played a fundamental role in establishing the nationwide “one man, one vote” electoral system
[3] While India experienced a political emergency declared by a previous Congress government between 1975-1977 that also snatched basic human rights, caused disappearances and ran interference with the higher judiciary, the elections declared by prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1977 were free and fair, sweeping her out of power.
[4] In its Report titled “Is the Indian EVM and VVPAT System Fit for Democratic Elections?” released in January, 2021 and submitted to ECI, Citizens Commission on Election (CCE) had said that EVM system does not provide provable guarantees against hacking, tampering and spurious vote injections and the VVPAT system as practiced does not allow the voter to verify the slip before the vote is cast and the absence of E2E verification would lead to voting and counting manipulation and had suggested remedial measures. ECI did not bother to respond.[https://constitutionalconduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/citizens-commission-on-elections-vol.-i.pdf].
[5] In August/September 2023, civil society submitted a Memorandum to ECI signed by about 10,000 voters making a specific demand: “The VVPAT system should be re-calibrated to be fully voter-verifiable. A voter should be able to get the VVPAT slip in her hand and cast it in a chip-free ballot box for the vote to be valid. These VVPAT slips should be fully counted first for all constituencies before the results are declared.” [https://www.change.org/p/ecisveep-eci-must-implement-its-constitutional-mandate-to-conduct-free-and-fair-election]. ECI did not even acknowledged this Memorandum leave alone acting upon it.
[6] The report was made public and can be viewed and accessed here:
https://votefordemocracy.org.in/
[7] The Notice served to the ECI may be read here https://votefordemocracy.org.in/