The counting of votes for the assembly elections in the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam, West Bengal and the union territory of Puducherry is getting underway today. The preferences of over 17 crore voters for a total of 824 seats are to be unravelled today. The voting percentage in Kerala is close to 80 per cent; elsewhere it is higher. The voting percentage in West Bengal (92 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (85 per cent) is an all-time record. While the “purging” of the voter list is one reason for the high voter percentage, the fact is that high political consciousness and fierce passion have brought voters to the polling booths in unusually high numbers. Voter participation is a good sign for democracy. At the same time, this is also an election season that has seen significant damage to the sanctity of elections. Voters, candidates, parties, and even polling officials have raised various complaints, but no resolution has been found. This includes the very serious fault of denial of voting rights. In Kerala, 20,411 government officials assigned for election work were denied the right to vote. They were not provided with postal voting facilities in time. The Commission which was supposed to provide the facilities did not do so. As a last resort, a petition was filed in the High Court to direct the Election Commission to provide the facilities.
The court also rejected it on the grounds that it cannot interfere with the election process due to the delay. The court itself, which dismissed the petition citing lack of time, accepted the counter-argument that the complainants did not provide the names and other information of more than 20,000 people who were denied voting. It was also due to the same lack of time that the complainants who had submitted district-wise figures to the district collectors to provide facilities for postal voting could not be provided with a complete list. The fact that the court did not accept the Commission's argument that the case was not maintainable makes it clear that the case is justified. It was not the officials' fault that they were unable to vote. The Commission initially said that they could vote during the training class, but the ballots were not delivered on time. Then it said that there would be facilities at the facilitation centres in the constituencies; many officials' ballots still did not arrive. Then it said that facilities would be provided at the centres where voting materials were distributed. But in many places, the ballots did not arrive on time. If the time is late now, it is not the voters who are responsible, but the Commission. How can it be fair to lose the votes of officials due to the Commission's failure? But 20,411 people have become martyrs of our electoral system. Even denying a single voter the right to vote is a violation of the Constitution. Here, more than 20,000 people were denied it. The number of people who were unjustly denied not only their vote but their citizenship itself through the Election Commission's flawed SIR is many times greater.
The injustice committed in the name of "purging" of the electoral roll has not been resolved, although this was pointed out many times. Despite many allegations of bias by the Commission, it has not been corrected. The Model Code of Conduct is applied only to opposition parties and leaders. The Commission could not even criticise the Prime Minister for abusing his power to influence voters on the eve of the polls. In 2019, Modi violated the rules the day before the vote by cashing in on the missile test. Perhaps emboldened by the Commission's inaction then, this time Modi publicly blamed the opposition parties using All India Radio and Doordarshan. It was not only a violation of the rules; the Prime Minister also spread the lie that the opposition had sabotaged women's reservation. The Commission did not move. There are many examples. In West Bengal, the widespread use of Union government officials instead of state officials for counting the votes affected the credibility of the election, but the Commission did not correct it; the court did not correct it. The Supreme Court may be technically correct in pointing out that the Commission has discretionary powers to appoint officials. But given the fact that this Commission is entirely made up of the Modi government's own nominees, the damage to the credibility of the elections could have been reduced if their actions had been corrected. The current Election Commission has gone far in abusing official mechanisms and undermining its credibility at every stage - right from the voter list preparation to the counting of votes.