In a fresh volley, aspersions are cast on the way the Election Commission is doing its job of organising successive elections and declaring the results. While the Leader of Opposition and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has come upfront to repeat the opposition charge that recent election results saw manipulations of a high order, he also made specific demands to ensure transparency of future elections. Among other things, he asked EC to release consolidated, machine-readable digital voter rolls and CCTV footage from polling booths in Maharashtra. This must be considered. Significantly, he has also demanded release of all post-5pm CCTV footage from Maharashtra polling booths vis-à-vis the 2024 assembly polls. Worse, he alleged that the Maharashtra polls were a ”blueprint for rigging democracy” and that “this match-fixing” would happen next in the upcoming Bihar assembly polls.
All these are serious matters – and more so, as they came from the Leader of the Opposition. But, a point to note is that Rahul Gandhi has remained silent for all these months after the Maharashtra polls. The Congress did raise suspicions about the Maharashtra verdict when the BJP-led alliance registered a landslide win despite assessments that the government would be voted out. Veteran leader Sharad Pawar had raised suspicion about a massive rigging of the polls. As Pawar noted, a similar scenario had emerged in Haryana shortly before, when the BJP retained power despite wide predictions of a Congress win there. In fact, similar allegations had been raised in Andhra Pradesh too, where the popular government of YSRC chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had been badly mauled in the general elections and the BJP-plus alliance of his rival Chandrababu Naidu took the reins. A set of techies, who saw Naidu as a hero, was alleged to have “played games” with the electronic voting machine. However, so far, no one could prove any charge against the fairness of the electronic voting system. Rahul Gandhi’s present charges span beyond that. He smells a rat in the way the voters list saw a huge bulge, and also alleges manipulations in the polling booths. Had there been such irregularities, a question arises as to why he or his party could not do an investigation and come up with clear evidence so far. As of now, his allegations lacked substance. A shadow war is not advisable.
It is nobody’s argument that electronic voting machines cannot be tampered. Manipulation of machines is possible. Yet, Tampering of the system at polling booths level is quite unlikely on a large scale as word would spread sooner or later. That would be a scandal of epic proportions, undermining the very credibility of India’s electoral systems. EC swears that the system is tamper-free. Unless proven otherwise, the people are duty-bound to take this at its face value. Fact is also that, state after state, the Congress is doing precious little to take on the governments and to build its organizational strengths.