Jagdeep S. Chhokar 
As a longtime observer of the electoral and political scene in India, I write this with great anguish. What prompts this piece is the letter that the Election Commission of India (ECI) has written to the president of the Congress party on May 9, in response to a letter that was not actually addressed to the ECI.
A plain reading of the ECI’s letter shows it to be petty, contentious and partisan. In contrast to the role of an independent, non-partisan entity acting as a neutral umpire in the fiercely combative electoral battles political parties engage in, the letter makes the ECI appear to be one of the contestants in the electoral fray.
Several points mentioned in the contents of the letter call for comment. Without going into the great administrative and seemingly technical details and jargon that the ECI seems to use in an apparent attempt to respond to, and explain, simple issues, here are the comments.
1. Despite verbose explanations of existing and widely known procedures, the ECI does not succeed in providing a simple explanation that can make sense to common voters as to why it first provide one figure (around 61%) for voter turnout for the first two phases of the current Lok Sabha election, and then raised it to around 66% after a significant amount of time had passed – something like 11 days for the first phase.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
On the one hand the ECI sings hosannas to Form 17C, claiming it to be something inviolable and which is provided to polling agents or representatives of political parties contesting the election in a particular booth or constituency, and on the other hand, saying that the figures that reach the Returning Officers after what it calls “P+1, P+2, or P+3 days” instead of saying one, two or three days after the polling day, may result in a change in the data entered in the Form 17.
The point simply is that if data first entered in Form 17C can be, and often or sometimes is, altered for justifiable reasons, why make such a big deal about it in the first place?
2. It is widely known, and as far as I know has not been disputed by the ECI, that they officially released only percentages for the voter turnout data for the first two phases of the election and did not release (a) the total number of registered voters, and (b) total number of votes cast.
In its letter, the ECI goes to great lengths, and repeatedly, to say that political parties could calculate the total numbers from the data contained in Form 17C which was available with them. While this may well be true, it begs the question of what a common citizen/voter is supposed to do when one sees such data reported in the press.
This leads us to a much more important and fundamental issue which will be mentioned next, but before that what perplexes imagination is why the ECI should withhold the total numbers when it is just not possible to calculate percentages without the totals.
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3. The most important and fundamental issue is the entire letter of the ECI is focused almost exclusively on political parties. Any common person reading the letter will be left with the understanding that the election is an issue only for political parties, and it is a matter only and exclusively between the political parties on the one hand, and the ECI on the other hand.
This is what brings up the issue of the role of citizens in the entire electoral process. Our political parties have long been under this totally erroneous impression that the country and its people exist so that political parties (and politicians) can exercise control over them. A piece in these columns more than five years ago said political parties are sovereign in this country, not the parliament, not the judiciary, not the president, not even the Constitution. The question of the people being sovereign did not even arise.
What is extremely disconcerting is this apparently newfound approach of the ECI wherein it seems to consider political parties to be the only, or at least the most important, stakeholders in the election. This is clearly the impression that its letter to the Congress president conveys.
It is very sad that the ECI seems to have forgotten or overlooked the simple fact that it is a constitutional authority and therefore its primary allegiance, loyalty and accountability are to the Constitution of India, and through that to “We, the People” of India who gave ourselves this Constitution through the Constituent Assembly.
4. Lastly, another, a kind of corollary to the above. The ECI says that it gives copies of Form 17C to the polling agents or representatives of candidates or political parties who are contesting the election at a particular polling booth or constituency. Two questions arise. One, all political parties do not contest the election in all constituencies. Does this mean that a party which is not contesting the election in a particular constituency, is not expected to have or should not have any interest in what happens in that particular constituency? This does not stand to reason.
The other issue is that even if a party is contesting the election in a particular constituency, the party may not have polling agents in all booths or all constituencies in which it is contesting the election. The reason is obvious, not all political parties are equally endowed financially. I have personal experience of voting in booths where there was no polling agent for one or more of the contesting political parties.
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5. In summing up, one is reminded of a Hindi doha which says, “Kshmaa badon ko chahiye, Chhotan lo uppaat”, which in free translation, might mean, “Youngsters are expected to be naughty, but the elders should be forgiving”. As a constitutional authority, the ECI is expected to take the moral high ground and stay above the day-to-day electoral fray. It is only from such a moral high position that it would be able to command the respect that it deserves in our constitutional scheme. By getting to the level of unprincipled political parties, which I must reiterate again, applies to all political parties, it can only sully its own reputation and standing, which is an extremely sad development. That is why I said in the very beginning that I write this with great anguish.
May our country see better times!
Jagdeep S. Chhokar is a concerned citizen.