Rahul’s Haryana files, SIR-2, and EC’s credibility crisis

While concerns persist over round two of the SIR, the EC’s actions and statements, far from buttressing public trust, have raised more queries

- A LICHOUGULE

The intensive revision of electoral rolls is nothing new in India. The exercise has been carried out eight times in the past. But never was there a suspicion or controversy over its intent and procedural inconsistencies. Neither has the Election Commission of India (EC) been accused of being so grossly biased towards any political party as it is being alleged now. We have heard about booth capturing in the olden days, but never of serious allegations of meticulously planned large-scale voter fraud across India, as Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi has claimed. The grave charges raised against the EC by Rahul relating to “vote theft” in the Haryana election on Wednesday and in the Mahadevapura constituency earlier in August, as well as the various allegations of a rigged process adopted for conducting the Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists, have raised serious questions about the EC's integrity.

The credibility of an electoral system is dependent solely on it being seen as fair by all, including the loser. Given the lack of trust in the EC's impartiality and actions, and Rahul’ allegations of voter list manipulation, it is not surprising that the hasty SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar, carried out amid several procedural inconsistencies and allegations of targeted mass deletion of genuine voters, evoked more suspicion than confidence in the “cleanup” exercise. As the electoral system remains mired in distrust over the integrity of the process, the Bihar SIR kicked up such a political storm over its hurried implementation that the Supreme Court (SC) was called in to intervene in the matter. Though the apex court's intervention addressed some of the shortcomings and corrected lapses of the contentious “purification” exercise, the outcome has been far from satisfactory.