These days there is a spring in Rahul Gandhi’s step. He seems to believe the Modi era is in its last phase and Hindutva fever is cooling down. He is in an apparent hurry to capture an early lead before the 2029 election campaign starts. In the most unprecedented way, he has declared war on the Election Commission of India.
In today’s volatile political climate, Congress leading the “vote chori” movement against BJP is understandable. But why they have kickstarted a political movement directly against the ECI, without a calibrated approach, is difficult to decode.
However, by no account is the issue he has raised irrelevant.
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Direct but belated challenge to EC
In a special press conference, Rahul Gandhi cited selective details from official EC data to show how in the Bengaluru Central constituency more than one lakh voters were added “stealthily”.
From this, he deduced it was done by the BJP for its own benefit and, without ifs and buts, alleged that the ECI had connived with the BJP in the “stealing” of votes.
Rahul says: “EC bina dare, khulkar BJP ke saath milkar chori kar raha hai” (Without fear, the EC is openly working with the BJP to steal).
Without giving any direct evidence, he claims what’s happening in Bengaluru is happening on a mass scale in other parts of India.
In Indian democracy, few charges can be as grave as this.
A more serious development is the Leader of Opposition’s strategy of issuing stern threats to poll officers through pre-recorded videos.
“There will be consequences for every polling officer. You see what we do to you,” he brazenly says in the video. “EC is very scared to attack me. Empire hi doosri team ka hai.” (Empire is from the other team.)
He further threatens: “Ye treason hai. Desh ke khilaf hai. Ye rajdroh hai. Time aayega hum aapko pakdenge. Aap bachnewale nahi ho” (This is treason. This is against the country. This is sedition. The time will come when we will catch you. You will not escape).
In the process, Rahul Gandhi has left no communication line open with as important a body as the ECI.
The voters list’s in-built problems — due to a technology-dependent process and the corrupting of it by candidates for political gains — are age-old issues.
Since the last seven decades, political parties and candidates across the spectrum have, when finding the opportunity, played games of adding, subtracting, deleting voters. Any thorough investigation will reveal that in this unholy game, barring minuscule exceptions, hardly any party or candidate is above board.
Rahul is demanding the video footage and digital copies of voters’ lists. The ECI has responded with applicable rules: digital copies are provided to candidates, and polling booth footage is kept for only 45 days unless a review petition is filed. As the EC put it, “reviewing CCTV from one lakh polling stations would take one lakh days — that’s approximately 273 years, with no legal outcome possible.”
Any political party that suspects a scam in polling or the voters list should file a complaint within 45 days of results. Rahul has taken much longer to present his interpretation of the data.
Creating suspicion more than change
Over the decades, however weak or tarnished the institutions of the judiciary and the ECI have become, in the view of ordinary citizens they continue to be the stabilising factors of Indian democracy. Actually, they don’t have an option.
In view of this, Rahul Gandhi and other leaders of the INDIA alliance, without any evidence, can at most create suspicion in the minds of their supporters against the ECI and the BJP, nothing more.
As the charges are grave, the ECI has urged him to follow due process: “Rahul Gandhi is trying to evade the procedure established by law and is trying to mislead the citizens as much as he can. If he truly believes in the list that he is circulating, he should have no problem in submitting claims against specific voters and signing the declaration on oath as per Rule 20(3)(b).”
Rahul Gandhi has so far failed to authenticate his allegations on oath.
That suggests this is a political fight more than anything else. His team has professionally designed “vote chori”, packaged it tight, and marketed it on social media to attract visibility.
Congress has taken a maximalist position while “exposing” the database of voters, saying, “What we love so much… our democracy… it doesn’t exist. Democracy is gone!”
Be that as it may, Rahul Gandhi is raising something that’s quite well known, debated, and has been a matter of serious concern for decades.
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An old game
On the eve of elections, “polling agents” of powerful candidates find ways to conduct bogus voting. These agents use, abuse, and misuse information from the voters list. Weeks before voting day, they track all voters in their constituencies and note how many are dead, have migrated out, or have been added. They use or misuse this exclusive information in favour of their candidates or against their rivals.
How the voters list is used to win or defeat candidates is one of the hottest stories of Indian elections.
In the past, Congress and Left parties had mastery over dissecting the voters list; now the BJP, TMC, DMK, and many rich and powerful candidates from major regional parties have gained and perfected this expertise. Without an absolute grip over the voters list of a constituency, it’s almost impossible for a candidate to win.
All political parties have dozens of masterminds who can help even a weak candidate win if the voters list is used cleverly or in a corrupt way.
India has 96 crore-plus voters. There are countless stories about how they got registered, failed to register, or got a voter’s card. In metros, around 30 lakh people don’t have their own home or address, and there are lakhs of footpath dwellers. To get a voter’s card, they depend on someone who will allow them to use a “home address”. In the construction sector, around one crore unorganised labourers live on-site or nearby, using whatever address is “available” to them at election time.
If Rahul has found 80 voters in one room in Bengaluru, it’s quite normal. He will find similar concentrations in one room or slum dwelling in West Bengal, Mumbai, and Surat, too. In industrial towns, daily wagers use the “address” provided by their contractors.
In India, over 45 crore people are internal migrants. They are required to delete their name from their old home and add the address of their new home. It’s a massive pan-India exercise, difficult for poor, digitally illiterate, and busy labourers. Polling agents working for candidates keep track of these voters’ movements. It’s a tedious, costly, and time-consuming exercise.
In 2008, during the tenure of Chief Election Commissioner of India N Gopalaswami, one survey was done in Karnataka. The state’s chief election officer informed the headquarters that after in-depth verification, 52 lakh entries of dead and shifted voters were deleted, 20 lakh fresh names were entered in the rolls, and 10 lakh corrections were made. In the last round, when claims and objections were invited for the same roll, around 7.24 lakh additional claims were admitted. No political party opposed the EC’s actions then.
Similarly, in 2007 in Uttar Pradesh, while cleaning the electoral rolls at the end of the revision, 21.13 lakh names of dead and duplicate voters were removed. Later, in the special summary revision, 50.01 lakh names of eligible voters were added and 34.14 lakh names were deleted. That year, after revisions, 61.69 lakh names were added and 78.01 lakh names were deleted. At the time, UP’s population was around 11 crores; now it is around 24 crores.
A rigged fight
Part of the problem lies in the discontinuation of the door-to-door survey system. A former CEC told me: “It was found that if the door-to-door survey is not done every year, around 3 to 4 per cent discrepancies creep into the voters list.” This is huge. Because of it, for the ECI, a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has become urgent and important.
For long, the ECI has not been doing the door-to-door survey. It carries out only a summary revision. Under summary revision, the EC publishes the voters list and invites claims and objections from people about erroneous details of deaths and migrations. At the same time, the EC reintroduces people deleted by mistake or removes those who are not meant to be on the list. Special Intensive Revision is precisely the exercise that would clean up the list.
But we live in polarising times. The opposition parties don’t trust the ruling alliance and think a Constitutional body like the ECI too is serving the BJP’s agenda. Rahul is convinced that these errors in the voters list are a scam and that even the cleaning-up exercise through SIR is a BJP tool to gain an upper hand in controlling voters.
In his press conference, he pointed to photographs of CEC Gyanesh Kumar and former EC Rajeev Kumar and said, “Ye destruction of democracy hai. They are the people who are doing it”
In the absence of any trust left for the ECI, Rahul has himself driven the issue to a dead-end. He is heading for a fight that can’t be won because making, correcting, and finalising the Indian voters list is a massive exercise without a full stop.
Also, Congress’s team of lawyers knows well that the Supreme Court is likely to go by the rule book in such a highly sensitive matter. One wonders, besides giving vague directions, what else the Supreme Court can do? Has Rahul Gandhi punched above his weight in targeting the ECI while sending warning signals to the BJP? The voter list is the exclusive domain of the ECI; no other institution can touch it.
Given the fraught nature of the issue, the ECI needs to respond to Rahul Gandhi’s accusations professionally and transparently. Else, it will end up giving him the ammunition he is desperately seeking.
Sheela Bhatt is a Delhi-based senior journalist. She tweets @sheela2010. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)