On Sunday, September 27, the chief ministers of all Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states came out in support of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar in a synchronised offensive, accusing the opposition of running a defamatory campaign against him.
The latest stand-off between the opposition and the CEC arises from the implementation of the Special Intensive Review (SIR), which resulted in the deletion of nearly 13 crore voters, equal to the combined population of France and the United Kingdom. The EC is within its right to use its residual power to conduct the SIR, even though section 21 of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951, mentions intensive review only for part of a constituency. For the BJP, such an overdrive is usually organised when the opposition attacks senior echelons of the government such as the prime minister, home minister or finance minister. CMs have never before defended the CEC in this manner, blurring the line between the independent constitutional body and the party. The opposition has claimed for months that Gyanesh Kumar runs the Election Commission of India (EC) to help the BJP to retain power and accused him of partisanship. Rahul Gandhi, the leader of opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha, has repeatedly alleged that Kumar has acted at the BJP’s behest, a charge denied by Kumar and the BJP. The powers under the Article are usually invoked in extraordinary circumstances such as banning a leader from campaign for a prolonged period for repeated violation of the electoral laws to maintain sanctity of polls or stopping elections for use of state machinery to help a particular candidate; it is normally not invoked for creating a new electoral roll. In all this — from conducting the SIR to making changes — the EC did not consult the most important stakeholders, the political parties and elected representatives, a concern raised by them several times. In fact, the EC, in recent years, had restricted its interaction with major political parties by imposing conditions such as only a nominated representative of a political party can meet election commissioners and not more than five members of a party can come inside its headquarters, Nirvachan Sadan, on Ashoka Road in New Delhi. In all this, the casualty is the reputation of the EC. People’s trust in the EC has eroded and political parties appear determined to impeach the CEC for seemingly aiding the ruling party. Voices of dissent against the CEC have also emerged from election commissioners, who are his partners in running the Constitutional body — a damage that a vibrant democracy like India cannot afford.
“Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (2), the Election Commission may at any time, for reasons to be recorded, direct a special revision of the electoral roll for any constituency or part of a constituency in such manner as it may think fit,” the provision states.
