Om Prakash Rawat, who served as the 22nd Chief Election Commissioner of India in 2018, has said that the Election Commission’s response to Rahul Gandhi’s disturbing allegations about fraudulent voters in Mahadevapura is “inadvisable” and “unfortunate”. Instead, he said, the Election Commission should “immediately inquire and investigate” into the allegations levelled by Gandhi.

In a 30-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Rawat said the Election Commission has not followed its own conventional practice and has instead opted to “reinvent the wheel”. The established practice of the Commission – which Rawat said was followed in an earlier instance of allegations about the electoral register in Hyderabad when he was Chief Election Commissioner – is to immediately order a full-fledged inquiry and investigation and not require an affidavit on oath.

Equally importantly, Rawat pointed out that in citing Rule 20 (3) (b) of the Registration of Electors Rules of 1960 to demand an affidavit on oath from Gandhi, the Election Commission was converting something that was discretionary and optional into a mandatory requirement. More importantly, Rawat argued this rule does not apply to the Rahul Gandhi case and, when pressed whether it was therefore being wrongly applied, Rawat chose to maintain silence and instead smiled. When it was pointed out to him that the audience would take his silence as an affirmative answer he continued to smile.

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