It seems the Election Commission of India has finally succumbed to political pressure. As the Commission choose to sidestep the issue of repoll, Manipur’s public have been denied of a free and fair election. The entire exercise of photographing voters by polling officials and photo comparison and the vivid photographic evidence of proxy voting in 523 polling stations have been wasted. The question is, why has the Commission shied away from its avowed objectives. In the beginning, Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi’s team looked tough and utterly committed to the cause of electoral reforms. And the general public was expecting a good election. We, at IFP, had chosen to congratulate Quraishi and his team a few days ago for their bold and ambitious measures, particularly the act of photographing voters with the inked finger, SVEEP campaign and of Media Certification & Monitoring. We had even appealed to political parties to cooperate with the Commission so as to ensure a free and fair election. Officials at the State Election Department burned midnight oil to complete the task of photo comparison in time. People have been eagerly waiting for the plot to unfold and the exposure of corrupt electoral practices. Yet, the Commission chose to close its eyes to telltale signs of proxy voting.
We understand, the act of conducting repoll in more than 100 polling stations is an onerous task which will involve huge logistical problems like security arrangement. But, it is not at all fair to sacrifice the necessity of a transparent election process for the sake of logistics. The Commission has at its disposal government officials and the huge security apparatus of the state. A huge expenditure has been incurred in purchasing mobile phones equipped with camera, more polling personnel were involved, and officials of the state election department had been harassed with the task of photo comparison. And it has all gone down the drain.
We must also mention the tremendous pressure given to the state media in the name of checking the practice of paid news by the Media Certification & Monitoring Cell. The pressure was such that, the state media developed a fear psychosis, and the essence of press freedom became blurred with the looming threat of ‘paid news.’ That perhaps explains the lack of complaints on ‘paid news’ were received from Manipur, while complaints were plenty in states like Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. The electorate was deprived the opportunity of critically assessing the various candidates including the sitting MLAs. In the United States, the state machinery seldom intervenes when the media discusses a candidate. If we are to elect a good leader, we should given the freedom of discussing the background details including the ideology and policy stance, character and moral of each candidate. The All Manipur Working Journalists Union put up a demand for representation in the State Level Media Certification & Monitoring Cell to the Chief Electoral Officer, a file was processed by the CEO’s office alongwith the approval of the ECI for inducting a senior member of the state media in the State Level Media Certification & Monitoring Cell. However, the file could not find its way out bureaucratic Chakrabhyu of SLMCMC.
Having said this, we would like to ask the Election Commission once again to review its decision not to conduct repoll in polling stations where cases of proxy voting has been detected, in public interest and for the cause of a free and fair election. If not, the Election must spell out its reasons for taking such a decision, publicly.