Nirvachan Sadan and the Future of elections in India

New Delhi: Prudence or Populism, what should get precedence in a democracy?

The Election Commission of India, popularly known as Nirvachan Sadan is in news obviously in the election season, but at times also for wrong reasons and some of it not its making. Thanks to the political class. The same netas and that include women political heavyweights too – who once favoured EVMs, now say there would be tampering. The same stalwarts who demanded central forces, now say these men and women in khaki and olive green are backing the saffron political outfit.

Well, politics is not the last place where one should look for grace.

In this year’s election season in West Bengal, we have a slogan ‘khela hobey’ and the state’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who created ‘her story (read alongside history)’ in 2011, is often seen throwing a football in poll rallies. She has termed EC ‘partial’ and also has received two notices so far – one for ‘Muslim appeal’ and the other for urging women voters to gherao central forces deployed in poll duty in her state. The polling in Cooch Behar was marred and some people lost lives in firing from central forces “in self defence”. The EC has slapped a 72-hour ban on politicians from entering the district. This has not gone well with those who prefer populism in politics.

To quote a Siliguri-based educationist in North Bengal, Ramakanto Shanyal, “Sadly but it is true, the Election Commission continues to become political football as electioneering in my state is lost in slander and hate speeches and violence”. Of course, this is not the first time the poll panel has come under attack or got itself embroiled in controversies.

There is also a new fashion statement by possible losers. In 2019 parliamentary polls, the Congress did it and started blaming EVMs even before polling in key states were over. Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress party are doing the same thing this time. In 2009, even a section in the BJP had done so. Truth and people’s mandate are often bitter but they need to be accepted. The poll panel is now again under focus, especially in West Bengal where the BJP is aggressively aiming to oust Mamata Banerjee. The spate of violence in West Bengal polls this summer despite eight-phase polling schedule would make things appear cool in militancy-strong hold states such as Jammu and Kashmir (in nineties), or even Bihar in the 1980s and thereafter under Lalu Prasad regime. It may be mentioned here that T N Seshan as the Chief Election Commissioner in 1993 banned a huge number of candidates from contesting for three years. These candidates did not show their daily poll-related expenses.

Seshan was of course the first highly controversial CEC, who displayed the real teeth of the building called Nirvachan Sadan. A rattled Congress regime under P V Narasimha Rao made the EC with multi-members. GVG Krishnamurthy and M S Gill were brought in as two other Election Commissioners and the system of 2-1 division ruling (decision) was set in. Despite being the ‘chief’, Seshan was reduced to a minority status. This issue was debated at later stages too.

“When the Supreme Court delivers a 2:1 verdict, you do not say there was bias, similarly the EC decisions should be accepted,” GVG Krishnamurthy once said.

Even this incumbent CEC Sunil Arora and his tenure has been bogged into controversies. In 2019, Arora and his colleague Sushil Chandra were on one side while there was a dissent note from fellow Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa. The issue in question was giving clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for alleged violation of Model Code of Conduct. Lavasa later quit to join Asian Development Bank as a vice president.

In fact, be became only the second election commissioner to step down from the poll panel before completion of his term. He gave up the chance to become CEC. The last time an election commissioner resigned was in 1973 when chief election commissioner Nagendra Singh was appointed a judge in the International Court of Justice at The Hague. There were other controversies too.

As the CEC, N Gopalaswami had his differences with EC Navin Chawla, a controversial bureaucrat known for Congress connections, and Gopalaswami had written to the Manmohan Singh government for his dismissal. The incumbent CEC Sunil Arora and his team are now into focus from West Bengal’s perspective.

But the sad part of the entire story is Indian political class in general are a class apart and as individual leaders and parties none takes a notice from the Election Commission seriously. On receipt of the first notice, Mamata Banerjee chose to scream at a poll rally, “they may serve me ten notices….”.

Sometime back under Seshan and those murky days of Indian politics, it was presumed that multi-phased of polling can scale down violence and ensure free and fair elections. The ‘Bengal battle’ of 2021 has proved things otherwise. So far there have been about half a dozen killings if not more directly linked to polls and as many as 33 election candidates have been individually assaulted in Bengal.

No wonder, actress and BJP nominee from Uluberia Dakshin Papia Adhikari, when assaulted in a hospital last week had said, “…politics is no longer for good people”.

There is a widely held belief that all these do not augur well for democracy.