The leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi has effectively brought the issue of electoral fraud back into the public consciousness. In what can be arguably his first oped piece he has raised 5 important questions, four of which concern the conduct, both commissions and omissions, and the first squarely lies with the government especially the prime minister. The issue of voter list manipulation and creating fraudulent voters, and enabling them to cast their votes either in person or proxy is at the heart of the issue. While electoral fraud is primarily a political challenge to be dealt politically there are more serious questions involved. First is of institutional accountability and transparency. The way the election commission has dealt with all questions over the last decade, be it the issue of evm manipulation, election schedule and code of conduct enforcement is not transparent or demonstrating accountability The argument of organizational strength of the bjp and the lack of it in the opposition parties to be able to prevent misconduct on the ground is also not acceptable as even smaller parties and independent candidates also need to be a provided level playing field. The issue of destroying evidence trail is far more serious and invites criminal liability. This needs to be addressed by the judiciary urgently. The announcement by the election commission that it would release the voter lists since 2009 is welcome but the demand for machine readable form is equally valid. Looking at the astronomical numbers of billions of names and changes over 15 years it would be impossible to process it manually. Data denial and data inundation are both equally undemocratic.
Unbundling a juggernaut
