Any party that advocates for the return of the ballot box system of voting has to be suffering from amnesia. Has it been forgotten how much fake voting took place in the past, with each political group taking over polling booths in areas where they dominated and denying local minorities their right to vote? Only parties that retain such grassroots strangleholds may want a return to the old system, such as the TMC in West Bengal and the BJP in most of North India. But for the Congress party to make this demand at the present when it has the weakest cadre on the ground is laughable.
Ask any citizen of the country who has witnessed firsthand the processes that the electoral system has been through, and he or she would testify that necessary reforms have been introduced resulting in a better, more efficient and accurate system. It is not just the technological advances such as the EVMs that have made the difference, it is also the improvement in procedures, the availability of identification processes and increase in the number of booths. The counting process is smooth and quick, with mandates becoming known in the space of a day.
As such, the continued attacks on the Election Commission of India by the opposition, particularly the Congress leadership, are quite out of place. It goes to the credit of the ECI that it has countered the charges every time with facts and figures. It has also taken steps to be more transparent and continued with improvements. That the critics repeat the same old charges without offering any proof indicates how disconnected they are with the reality of present-day politics.
Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly made accusations against the ECI, and he has done so again in anticipation of the assembly elections in Bihar. Instead of strengthening the functioning of the Congress cadre, which is mostly inactive, he casts the blame on everybody else. The successes that his party has had have been where regional parties have transferred their votes, such as the SP in Uttar Pradesh. Congress, on its part, is unable to motivate even those who are inclined in its favour to come out and vote. This is because the local interaction required is missing. (In Uttarakhand, party workers were not even aware of which booth a former chief minister was required to cast his vote, forget about providing information to the common citizen.) Instead of constantly blaming the system, about time the Congress gets its act together!
