Several years ago, when the Left Front was still in power in West Bengal, I went for live election coverage to a village just outside Kolkata. I stood in front of the camera next to a poll booth, caught a couple of voter soundbites, discussed local issues and described the atmosphere.
In between live segments, my phone rang. It was my colleague from New Delhi, who somewhat apologetically said to me that the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) had been watching the news coverage and privately told him that a senior journalist like me should have known better than to wear clothes of a colour associated with a particular party during news coverage on election day.
I was flummoxed and contrite and extremely sorry. I had worn a red kurta that day, absolutely unthinkingly. The Left was in power in the state at that time, and red was the colour of their flags, etc. By wearing red on voting day, I could be viewed, I was told, as promoting a political party and trying to influence voters.
Since then, I have never worn saffron, green, or red on an election day. Not even a red bindi.
On Tuesday, this half-remembered incident resurfaced as I watched Prime Minister Narendra Modi on TV head to the polling station at Gandhinagar, Gujarat, to cast his vote. Walking alongside was the BJP’s Gandhinagar candidate, Home Minister Amit Shah. Their sartorial choice: Shah had a saffron scarf around his neck, and Modi wore a sleeveless, lightly checked bright saffron jacket.
Naysayers will say saffron is the BJP’s colour, and Modi and Shah as party leaders are entitled to wear it whenever they please. And you can’t argue with that. Just like you have every right to pick your religion, life partner, or food, you must also have the right to wear the colour of your choice.
But could they have made an exception on voting day? In Bengal, I have never seen the Communists wear red to a polling station, nor TMC any green, and, now that I think of it, perhaps only a rare BJP leader arriving at a polling station in saffron.
Crisp white has been de rigueur for all contesting bhadraloks and bhadramahilas, too, never red, etc. Battles have erupted over party flags strung up too close to the polling station. I once witnessed a voter coming to cast his vote with a brooch designed like the Trinamool Congress symbol pinned on his kurta right over his heart. He had to go away, leave the accessory behind, and come back to vote.
So very different from scenes at Gandhinagar on Tuesday.
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What has happened, EC?
Modi’s outing to cast his vote turned into a full-fledged roadshow, an extension of his election campaign. For at least 10 whole minutes — that was the length of footage shown on TV — Modi and Shah dominated television screens not just in Gandhinagar but across India, in 92 other constituencies that were also voting that day. The duo strolled down a road lined with people who, from behind tall metal barricades, waved and raised slogans.
Modi even had a little cut-out of a lotus—the BJP’s election symbol— in his hand but I could be mistaken.
Perhaps the bystanders crowding to see Modi and Shah were fans—after all, voters other than Modi and Shah had come out to the polling station to fulfil their constitutional duty as well. But who comes to press the EVM button armed with party flags and cut-outs of party symbols? I appreciate the prime minister and home minister must be protected day and night. But that day, that road down which they walked to vote was fully barricaded, and the whole spectacle felt stage-managed.
Whatever happened to the MCC? No, not the Marylebone Cricket Club but the MCC as in the Election Commission-imposed model code of conduct, which, incidentally, turned 50 this year. I am told Hamlet’s famous phrase, ‘more honoured in the breach than observance’, may have been misinterpreted for years and is now viewed as meaning something quite different. But sticking to what I learnt in college 40 years ago, this election has been about MCC breaches as perhaps never before.
No point enumerating instances of the innumerable violations: they are all in the public domain, including the EC’s slap on the wrist to BJP president JP Nadda for Modi’s communal speech in Rajasthan. Instead, let me take the point further and ask, since when did the Election Commission of India permit political campaigns on polling days, albeit in a distant constituency?
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Small acts, big elections
The campaign silence period of 48 hours before poll date used to be sacrosanct once. Agreed, in this day and age, a blanket silence is not possible. Political parties are streaming rallies live on social media and digital news platforms, and controversial clips of those speeches are viral on X and Instagram. But the absence of any restriction on television news channels when they are the media with the greatest reach — should there be a rethink?
Coming back to the little story about my red dress on polling day and the CEC’s critical comment, I have asked a couple of retired CECs about it in recent years. They said the remark on the colour of my kurta was, and I quote, “uncalled-for nonsense”. Anyone can wear any colour they want on voting day.
It was reassuring to hear that, somewhat assuaging years of embarrassment over what I believed was a wardrobe faux pas. But after Tuesday’s Gandhinagar spectacle, I am forced to wonder if the Election Commission has, like fine wine, improved with age or turned into vinegar.
Given the heatwave across the country, I also have a bone to pick about the 44-day election, the longest since our first in 1951-1952. Also, normally, traditionally, elections would be over by early May, and results would be out about now. Whose idea was it to make us suffer and wait for the results until 4 June? There is something called election fatigue, folks.
The author is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @Monideepa62. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)