The Congress-led coalition of opposition parties is making strong demands for the reinstatement of ballot papers alongside a transformed collegium responsible for appointing election commissioners. Their criticisms target the Election Commission, claiming it has lost credibility, especially regarding electoral roll updates and those pesky model code infringements.
NEW DELHI: Accusing EC of being compromised, opposition, led by Congress, SP and DMK, demanded on Tuesday a return to ballot papers and expansion of collegium that selects election commissioners to a five-member body, comprising two LoPs, PM, home minister and CJI, as against the present composition of PM, home minister and LoP in Lok Sabha.Congress MP Manish Tewari, who opened the debate on electoral reforms in Lok Sabha, argued that if such a committee was formed, then “theek se khela hobe”, and it will remove doubts over the credibility of EC.The all-round attack on EC and BJP was carried out by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, DMK’s Dayanidhi Maran, TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee, NCP’s Supriya Sule, Shiv Sena’s Anil Desai, CPM’s Amra Ram, RJD’s Abhay Sinha, and AAP’s Gurmeet Hayer, among others.Tewari and Banerjee said EC has no legal power to conduct SIR across states, and it can order such revision only in specific constituencies after recording complaints and conducting inquiries into them. Tewari also slammed the SIRs done by past govts.Akhilesh described the SIR as NRC with another name, stating the UP CM has declared that “detention centres” are being constructed for those weeded out of the electoral rolls. He called the SIR a hasty exercise which was launched without providing training to BLOs, citing their deaths. Training guns at EC, he alleged that the administration was misused to help BJP in past UP bypolls, but SP’s complaints to EC went unheeded.Tewari and Maran demanded a return to ballot papers, as done by US and Japan. Tewari said EVMs could continue in case of 100% VVPAT counting. However, Supriya Sule refused to criticise EVMs, saying she has been voted to LS four times through the same machines. Tewari also demanded a ban on cash transfers ahead of polls, saying cash benefits were playing havoc with the exchequer while distorting the electoral landscape in favour of the governing party.Stating that erosion of people’s faith in democracy leads to anarchy, he demanded that govt inform opposition if the “source code” of EVMs, the motherboard programme, is with EC or with the companies concerned.Trinamool’s Banerjee dubbed BJP “Bengali hater” and asked if it will expel all Bengalis from India by calling them “Rohingya”.Maran, targeting EC, said in 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha polls, EC had allowed PM Narendra Modi to meditate at Kedarnath and at Vivekananda Memorial for two days each, helping him dominate TV coverage ahead of voting.Sule said EC’s political neutrality is under a cloud because it has failed to curb hate speech and its enforcement of the model code of conduct is inconsistent, and errors in electoral rolls are disproportionately hurting the weaker groups.
