A big question about the 2024 General Elections now is, how worse can the worse be. A credible independent election watchdog, the Association for Democratic Reforms, has come up with a startling revelation: there was a significant mismatch between the number of votes polled and the number of votes counted in every constituency, barring a few. The number of votes counted was either less or more than the votes polled. This is more disconcerting as the electronic voting machine does not lie on its own. The figures ought to be accurate, unlike in the counting of paper ballots. The mismatch is, prima facie, a pointer to foul play, unless proven otherwise by the Election Commission. The EC of today is not the EC of the Seshan era. The “interventions” EC made at the time of the campaign and polling were suspect in several instances even as this is projected to be an independent constitutional entity. “Significant discrepancies in 538 parliamentary constituencies,” of this nature is no small matter.
The job of the ADR is not to confront the government or the Election Commission. It has done its job of citing facts and figures and exposed what it found was a scandalous malpractice. If both the government and the EC remain quiet about what has come out in the public realm, they are abdicating their responsibility to allay public anguish over the discrepancies. Accountability is the first casualty with the governing establishments, as also the people’s representatives and the bureaucracy. The first prime minister had some prick of conscience when it came to such matters. He did not show the arrogance of power or take the people for granted. Progressively, elected leaders took the systems in this country for a ride. With a pliant media that survive mostly on favours from the establishment, and the opposition being ineffective due to a lack of strong leadership, the Modi government perhaps couldn’t care less in situations like this.
All the big talk about India being the “largest” democracy by virtue of its 1.4 billion bulge would make little sense if the integrity of the electoral system is not upheld with zealousness. A situation should not arise when nations like Pakistan or Bangladesh try to take lessons from the Indian experiments in election mismanagement or manipulations. Notably, the poll watchdog also disagreed with “the inordinate delay in the release of final voter turnout data and the absence of disaggregated constituency and polling station figures in absolute numbers.” In the electronic voting and counting process, a chance for error is zero. The EC and the central government should explain the reasons for such discrepancies and where things went wrong. A stony silence is neither acceptable nor understandable.
