Which emperor is fondly remembered for cruelty and deceit? None.

Rulers earn love and respect through morality and benevolence. Imagine how Indians will feel if Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears on TV tomorrow to deliver an address to the nation, saying, “Dear countrymen, I am anguished by the revelation made by the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi about the tainted voters list. It’s painful to discover our election process is so vitiated. Not a single fake voter should be allowed. Not a single genuine voter will be excluded. I hear the outcry in Bihar as well. Enough is enough! Let’s clear this mess. I begin the cleansing process by accepting the Supreme Court’s suggestion on the composition of the committee to appoint the Chief Election Commissioner. I will go a step further. Let’s have an all-party monitoring committee to ensure the Election Commission doesn’t deviate from the mandated path. Let’s collectively take a pledge to uphold the highest moral and ethical standards in every sphere of national life.”

Why is the Election Commission not providing machine-readable digital data of voters?

Why did the Election Commission amend rules to destroy video footage in 45 days?

Why is the Chief Election Commissioner not calling all political parties to find solutions to core concerns, emphatically declaring that the key constitutional authority cannot afford to spoil its reputation?

If there are duplicate names, fake addresses and fake voters, should the Election Commission not be more alarmed than the opposition parties? “How come this perversion?,” the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar should have screamed, seething in rage and hauling up his Karnataka officials for having over one lakh doubtful entries in the electoral rolls in a single assembly constituency.

Perish the thought. The Karnataka Chief Election Officer was obviously asked by his bosses sitting in Delhi to give a grotesque twist to the disquieting discourse of election theft. He asked the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi to lodge the complaint on ‘oath.’ The blind loyalists of the Modi regime got a talking point, a diversionary trick, flooding social media with silly queries – “Why not on oath?”

This is like trying to terrorise the whistle-blower. Will anybody ask the prime minister to make a statement on oath? He is already under the oath of the constitution. So is the Leader of Opposition, as are all Members of Parliament. The point, however, is different. The Election Commission is duty-bound to answer why hundreds of people have registered the same address and why the house number zero and father’s name – gibberish of letters – got approved? Election officials, from Delhi to Bengaluru, should have been like cats on a hot tin roof, hunting for credible explanations for the puerile nonsense reflected in the voters list. But… saiyyan bhaye kotwal to dar kahe ka? 

Bihar fallout

The Election Commission might have betrayed signs of brazening it out but Rahul Gandhi’s press conference has cracked something. There was irrefutable evidence of wrong-doing in the SIR but Rahul’s presser, though about Mahadevpura in Bangalore Central, appears to have concretised and reinforced the perception of widespread irregularities, nay, fraud, in the entire electoral list. Rahul succeeded in linking the flawed electoral rolls to the organised theft of elections.

While that has deepened suspicions about the voting process across the country, a perception is gaining ground in the judiciary as well as the bureaucracy that the “Lakshman Rekha” of manipulation must not be crossed. All opposition parties wholeheartedly endorsed Rahul’s campaign and floated the idea of showing the press conference to ordinary people in every district. Smart video clips prepared to spread the message simply through social media are going viral. Rahul and Tejashwi Yadav have planned two phases of a 'Vote-Adhikar Yatra' in Bihar, creating awareness among the people about the large-scale rigging of elections.        

 Also read: Several Irregularities in UP Poll Panel Chief’s Response to Rahul Gandhi’s Voter List Exposé

Theatrics or foreign policy?

Hans Morgenthau, an American foreign policy expert who was adviser to two Presidents – John F Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson – wrote: “The first lesson the student of international politics must learn and never forget is that the complexities of international affairs make simple solutions and trustworthy prophesies impossible.” Didn’t external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, a career diplomat, teach this simple lesson to Prime Minister Narendra Modi? How could Modi presume joyous hugs with foreign dignitaries and a sponsored show with NRIs would make up for the lack of pragmatism in foreign policy? The song-and-dance show is now stuck in a no-go lane.

Look at Modi’s track-record: He landed in Pakistan on an unscheduled visit with the obvious aim of normalising relations and ended up in a vortex of terror and conflicts. He broke historical barriers to embrace Xi Jinping as a “plus-one” friend and faced intrusions and betrayal. He trampled upon diplomatic restraints to sing “Abki Baar Trump Sarkar” and attracted an unprecedented rebuff from Donald Trump. Now things are so topsy-turvy that Modi is toying with the idea of returning to China and Russia to get even with the United States – in which he has emotionally invested in for 11 years. Don’t forget: There are no simple solutions.

When critics called him out for reckless endeavours on alien shores, he remained intoxicated on the chants of “Modi-Modi” that sycophantic big media TV anchors hyped up during his tours. They thought women crying and crowing about Modi’s virtues could replace diplomatic skills and strategic vision. The outcome, to say the least, is pathetic. We don’t even have normal relations with Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives. How India cope will with the disastrous consequences of American antagonism is difficult to guess, but it is high time Modi understood that diplomacy is more about restraint and foresight than ebullience and adventure. It is wiser to acquire a deeper understanding of geo-political realities and the personality traits of foreign leaders than mawkishly parroting the “My-friend-my-friend” mantra.  

Also read: Backstory | Stolen Elections Should Make for Compelling Journalism but Big Media Looked the Other Way

Where is Dhankhar?

A habeas corpus plea for somebody who was the vice-president till a few days ago? No, the writ hasn’t been filed yet, but the country’s top lawyer Kapil Sibal wondered whether such a writ a should be filed because Jagdeep Dhankhar is actually missing. Sibal said another option was to register an FIR but that does not look nice and hence Union home minister Amit Shah must tell the nation where the former vice-president is. Sibal revealed that he was told a few days ago that Dhankhar was resting but now nobody even picks up his phone. A booming voice in support of Prime Minister Modi tenders his resignation all of a sudden and mysteriously disappears from the scene! Are we really a banana republic?

Many important persons claim they tried to meet or talk to Dhankhar in vain. No response, that’s the complaint. His abrupt exit from office raised eyebrows because reports suggested abnormal pressures from some senior ministers but his disappearance is inexplicable. He is not in his official residence but nobody knows where he has shifted. Is he under surveillance? Has the Modi government placed some informal gag order on him? There was speculation that Dhankhar could spill the beans and hence he was not allowed to meet people. But is there any legal way to stop him from meeting people?

Till we get credible answers, let’s decipher the message of this beautiful couplet:

Isi khata pe bujhaye gaye charagh mere
Main jaanta tha bahut kuchh hawa ke baare mein.

[For this very fault, my lamp was extinguished –
I knew many secrets of the wind]

Sanjay K. Jha is a political commentator.

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