New Delhi: Former chief election commissioner (CEC) Om Prakash Rawat has said that election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi should not have stopped at dissent notes when their objections were not heard, and instead should have ensured that the decisions taken against their will were annulled at the next meeting of the Election Commission, headed by CEC Gyanesh Kumar.

Condemning the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) exercise and the election commission’s handling of it, in an interview with The Hindu, O.P. Rawat alleged that this was "the first time since Independence that so many eligible electors had lost their voting rights".

His remarks come in light of The Indian Express expose which stated that Sandhu and Joshi had formally objected to various aspects of the SIR, 14 times over the course of 10 months. Rawat had earlier described the reported revelations as “very serious” and “unfortunate”, particularly pointing to the changes to statutory voter-registration Form 6, saying they were “absolutely wrong and illegal”.

“They had the majority [in the ECI]. In the very next meeting, when their first objections were not heard, they should have annulled all the decisions taken against which they had an opinion. They should have taken the right decision, which would have prevailed. So obviously, they did not take that route,” said the former CEC, who held the post from January 23-December 1, 2018, in the interview to The Hindu.

'CEC does not have any veto'

Explaining how the election commission functions, Rawat told the daily that  meetings are usually held very regularly to ensure decisions are made quickly and efficiently and even when the members disagree, the meetings aid discussions and help bring about an agreement. 

In the “one in a million” occasions where consensus cannot be reached, he said, there is the recourse of voting, where the majority opinion prevails. “The Chief Election Commissioner himself does not have any veto. Absolutely not. He is equivalent to the other Commissioners,” he added.

Also read: Inside the ECI: Two Commissioners, 14 Objections, and No Answers

Rawat condemned the damage the SIR exercise has caused to the voting rights of citizens, especially in West Bengal where 93% of the voters who appealed were reinstated to the rolls after tribunal hearings but they could not vote in the Assembly elections. 

“The initial paras will give the impression that the Election Commission is all powerful. But then in the last para, they say the Election Commission will refer all those cases where they found questionable citizenship to a competent authority. And once the competent authority decides, then their names can be included again,” he said, noting. “But what happens to their vote? No mention of that.”

Demanding that the three election commissioners hold a joint press conference, the former CEC said that the recent controversies have cast a shadow over the ECI’s reputation, which had so far been called “the gold standard everywhere”.

As reported by The Wire earlier, Rawat is among several former poll body members who have raised questions regarding the disclosures. Former chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi, in an opinion piece, had said the revelations call attention to whether decisions attributed to the ECI were in fact taken through the commission’s collective decision-making code of conduct.

Watch: 'Voters Left Out In Lakhs Is a Blot On Our Democracy': Former CEC Om Prakash Rawat

Former election commissioner Ashoka Lavasa, had said the concerns highlighted by serving commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi were “legal in nature.”

Meanwhile, Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh cited the former CEC’s remarks, saying the INDIA bloc remained committed to defending the constitution and democracy.

In a post on X, Ramesh referred to Rawat’s interview and claimed that nearly 14 crore voters had been disenfranchised through the SIR.

Opposition parties have also demanded immediate impeachment proceedings against CEC Gyanesh Kumar based on the grave revelations, calling the decisions, in which Sandhu and Joshi were reportedly blindsided, “unauthorised and illegal”.

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