‘Irregularities’ of ECI Flagged in VDF Report Endanger Democracy

The Vote For Democracy publication, Report: Conduct of Lok Sabha Elections 2024 – Analysis of ‘Vote Manipulation and Misconduct during Voting and Counting released in Mumbai on July 22, has exposed alleged irregularities of the functioning of the Election Commission of India (ECI) during the conduct of 18th general elections.

The VFD, a Maharashtra-level citizens’ platform comprising individuals and organisations, set up by activists Teesta Setalvad, Dolphy D’Souza, Father Frazer Mascarenhas and Khalil Deshmukh, brought out the publication authored by former bureaucrat M.G. Devasahayam and activist Dr Pyare Lal Garg.

No Action Against Divisive Speeches

The report noted with grave concern that ECI never acted against those leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who delivered speeches during election campaign, targeting Muslims and employing communally divisive narratives for appealing for votes. “The abject failure of the ECI to act against the violators, be it the Prime Minister or his peers in the BJP” the report remarked, “will remain a serious blot on the institution’s conduct”.

ECI Data Used to Flag Unexplained Hike in Voter Turnout

The report, based on ECI data, reveals a worrisome figure, that almost extra five crore votes were polled beyond the official final count of total votes cast. While doing so, it flags the point that the ECI, in spite of several requests to it to explain the massive hike of those votes, has not provided any credible explanation till date. This has given rise to lingering doubts that the electoral process might have been manipulated in showing an “inflated figure.”

Added to this is the report’s frightening conclusion that because of such massively inflated figures, the BJP and its allies who have formed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), could have won in 79 Lok Sabha seats spreading over several states. Based on this alleged victory for NDA, the report makes a bold claim that the mandate might have been stolen from the INDIA bloc partners who got 232 seats in contrast to 240 seats of BJP which, along with its NDA partners, could muster a majority to form the government with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister.

The VDF report, while stating that in the earlier general elections the ECI released the percentage of voter turnout by the evening of the day the votes were cast, and gave a revised figure next day, with the difference between the two figures not more than 1 or 2%. However, in the 18th general elections, the difference was found to be of “3.2% to 6.32%” in all the seven phases. The report noted that the difference was a “staggering 12.54% in Andhra Pradesh and 12.48% in Odisha”, and the cumulative average of the increase in the final voter turnout was 4.72%. 

Alleged Benefit to BJP in 79 seats

It pointed out that the victory margin for NDA in 79 seats across 15 states with low. Those 79 seats, when looked at state-wise, are 18 in Odisha; 11 in Maharashtra; 10 in West Bengal; seven in Andhra Pradesh; six in Karnataka; five each in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan; three each in Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana; two in Assam; and one each in Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, and Kerala. 

What the report reveals is that the unexplained spike in votes was more than the victory margin of NDA candidates and had there been no spike, the winning candidates would have been defeated. Had the NDA got less than 79 Lok Sabha seats, the majority mark would not have been reached by it. And, of course, the BJP tally would have been less than 200. That is why the VDF report has described the victory of NDA as nothing but a “stolen mandate.”

No Action by ECI Against PM

The crucial point is that if the claims made by the report are true, then the ECI’s role in conducting the elections in a free and fair manner is questionable. Already, the ECI has eroded its credibility in the manner in which, among others, it did nothing to invoke the model code of conduct (MCC) against Prime Minister Modi when he repeatedly made communally divisive speeches during the campaign and when, after the completion of electoral process, a question was asked to Chief Election Commissioner Rajeev Kumar as to why ECI did not act against Modi, he famously replied that the persons occupying high offices know how to act with responsibility.

Ambedkar’s Apprehensions Flagged by VDF Report  

The VDF report said that the ECI did not apply the MCC to PM Modi thereby displaying its subservient attitude toward him and proving B R Ambedkar’s apprehensions expressed on June 16, 1949, during the debates in the Constituent Assembly on the draft Article 289 (now Article 324) of the Constitution dealing with the Election Commission, that in the absence of any provision in the Constitution to prevent the appointing of either a fool or a knave as Election Commissioner, it would be likely that the ECI would come under the thumb of the executive.

The report, a copy of which has been sent to the ECI for its response and necessary action, if true, proves the point that the ECI, in functioning under the “thumb of the executive”, has vitiated the cause of free and fair elections, held by the Supreme Court of India as part of the basic structure of the Constitution.

It is tragic that when Prime Minister Modi claims that India is the ‘mother of democracy’, the very electoral process that remains at the core of any democratic system, is being impaired by the alleged irregularities by ECI.

‘Servile ECI’ 

The VDF report’s arguments that the alleged lapses of ECI are indicative of favouring the ruling BJP-led NDA so that it would win a majority in the 18th Lok Sabha, confirms the apprehensions expressed by the apex court in the Anoop Baranwala vs Union of India case in 2023, that it should not become a “servile commission”.

The Opposition parties and civil society must remain in the forefront in using the contents of the report to restore the purity of the electoral process and independence of the ECI, as enshrined in the Constitution.

The writer served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K R Narayanan. The views are personal.