Sunday witnessed high voltage political drama as the election commission came down to the political arena with a press conference, targeting the opposition, especially the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Mr Rahul Gandhi and Rahul preempting it by launching his vote chori yatra 3 hours before the press conference. As the opposition mahagatbandhan took to the streets, over the SIR in Bihar, which it calls “vote chori” the pressure on the election commission is mounting. Ever since it started the process of voter list revision, it has faced charges of deliberate manipulation to favor the BJP and Mr Gandhi presented data from mahadevpura constituency in Bangalore. Combined with the doubts raised about the addition of huge number of new voters in Maharashtra, and now deletions in Bihar, Mr Gandhi has hit the credibility of the commission hard. The election commission must realize that it is a referee in a wild political contest and the sanctity of the entire contest and subsequent constitutional government formation is based upon its neutrality and anonymity. If the election commission is unable to maintain its bipartisan nature and image, the entire political structure will collapse. What we saw on Sunday, wasn’t reassuring at all. First of all, it must remember that the opposition is an equal party to the contest, it has to conduct, and without its confidence the commission becomes redundant and dysfunctional, which cannot be salvaged by the ruling party, however popular it might be. Mr Gyanesh Kapoor has reduced his and the commission’s position to an untrustworthy suspect. His evasion of questions from the floor, hiding behind procedural rules without addressing the substance, misinterpreting statutes and even blatant lying has done more harm than the stony silence had done. His excuse of violating the privacy of female voters, against sharing cctv footage, is absurd to the core. If the cctv footage was not shareable, was it installed for voyeurist and vicarious pleasure of the commission and its officials. The defense of duplication of voters and fake addresses as procedural errors and shifting the burden of correction on political parties is sheer bad faith. The absolute neglect of Mr Gandhi’s charges, no commitment to investigate them and hiding behind constitutional status will hurt the system and the credibility of the bjp too. The yatra by the mahagathbandhan, has taken the issue right into the heart of the discourse and has demonstrated the united face of the opposition in front of a squabbling nda. Mr Gandhi has learnt his lessons and knows that yatra is the best way to communicate to the public, in the face of a hostile mainstream media.
