Electoral Lessons

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar wants to build a consensus among political parties that elections should not be held over long durations, with long gaps between each phase of voting. He has a valid point which should be taken up in earnest, because questions have been raised about how general election 2019 has been conducted. Spread over 39 days and held in 7 phases, this election for the Lok Sabha was awash in cash, gold, liquor, drugs and poll freebies, judging from the seizures made. The total value of these seizures is nearly Rs 3,500 crore, thrice the value of seizures made in 2014 elections which amounted to Rs 1,206 crore. The motive was to induce voters, says the Election Commission releasing these figures. As for the EC itself, rumblings of dissension within have kept the media agog in the past few days, and all eyes will be on the full commission meeting scheduled on Tuesday to discuss the issue of ‘dissent and related matters’. The constitutional body has been squarely in the headlines after Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa’s reported decision to stay away from model code violation cases ‘till his dissents are recorded’ in the meetings. Lavasa is learnt to have dissented in some of the 11 decisions the poll watchdog took on complaints against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah for alleged model code violations, with clean chit eventually given in all the decisions. Opposition parties have not been convinced by the EC’s explanation that model code complaints (not being quasi-judicial hearings) do not require all three EC members to sign the order, and any dissent in the meeting is noted only on the file but never made public. The Congress meanwhile has alleged that the long gaps in poll schedule helped Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his hectic campaigning across several States. Opposition parties have also complained to the EC that Modi’s pilgrimage to Kedarnath-Badrinath was a clear violation of the model code, because non-stop media coverage ensured that he remained on voters’ mind during the cooling off, no campaign period before polling. One wonders what to make of tweets and social media activities of leaders during cooling off periods, whether the EC can do anything about it. As for Twitter itself, it made a strange spectacle by allowing exit polls to be shown on its platform before May 19, the last day of polling, inviting a rap on the knuckles by EC. The Opposition’s carping over EVMs and demand for higher VVPAT verification was met by a reasoned response from the Supreme Court in EC’s favour. Overall, the poll discourse sank to new lows this election, while violence during all the 7 poll phases in West Bengal does not augur well for the State. Sadly, the country will have to look beyond counting day for issues that matter, like what to do about endemic farm distress, small businesses crying for working capital, high unemployment, growing inequality and intolerance.