A news report about ‘differences’ among members of the Election Commission regarding implementation of the SIR and related issues has enthused leaders of the opposition, no end. Despite most of them facing cases of various kinds pending for years in the courts, they have wasted no time in declaring Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar guilty of ‘favouring’ the BJP and announced various forms of punishment that he should undergo. Even beyond that, they are willing to complete upend India’s electoral system just so that the BJP’s mandate at the Centre and several states can be declared invalid.
Sanjay Raut, presently a Rajya Sabha MP of the Shiv Sena (UBT), has gone so far as to demand the Army carry out a ‘coup to save the country’! While he has always been over the top in his career as a journalist for his party’s newspaper, he surely does not believe that he will retain his place in Parliament if his wish comes true? Rahul Gandhi has declared it ‘vote chori’ and threatened to take action against the CEC if his party comes to power. AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal has demanded Gyanesh Kumar’s immediate arrest and a case lodged against him for ‘treason’. He wants all elections held in the past three years to be cancelled and the old voter list to be restored. Mamata Banerjee and her nephew have also demanded Kumar’s arrest.
Why this desperation among opposition leaders, who are going beyond any arbitrariness of the CEC with their own demands? It must be remembered that the ECI has been among the best performing institutions of the nation, having ensured fair and free elections since Independence. India’s democracy would be nowhere if this was not the case. Any why this fear of the SIR, which everybody who has gone through the process will vouch is being conducted efficiently and without prejudice. Why do opposition parties not want a voter list that is genuine and cleansed of fake, duplicate or dead voters? Will the results of elections not be more representative of the ground reality?
The ECI has, of course, asserted that it has been functioning on the basis of unanimity, and that differences of opinion are part of the process. The problem is that most opposition parties have become ideologically hollow and are looking to be ‘rescued’ by events that can ‘expose’ the dominant BJP. However, for the sake of the nation, it is alright to build narratives to win the people’s support, but quite another thing to undermine an institution that has served the nation with integrity and dedication, and which functions on the basis of people’s trust.
