ECI is shooting the messenger and ignoring the message, says Congress’s Abhishek Singhvi

The Election Commission says Rahul Gandhi should make his allegations of electoral malpractice under oath. If Mr. Gandhi calls the Congress’s investigation ‘irrefutable proof’, why should an oath be an issue?

A genuinely responsible Constitutional body would have received the detailed representation by the Leader of the Opposition in the world’s largest democracy with concern and receptivity. Secondly, it would have said that they would revert after a few days or weeks, after looking into the serious and extremely detailed allegations relating to the heart of a level playing field, which directly impinges on free and fair elections. And this, in turn directly relates to democracy and the basic structure of the Indian Constitution. Instead, thirdly, within hours, the ECI started shooting the messenger and ignoring the message.

Fourthly, its reference to an affidavit is completely misconceived since that relates to individual bilateral election disputes concerning a particular polling booth or malpractices in an individual case. It has no application and no nexus with the larger macro set of wholesale fraud for an entire Assembly constituency, as alleged.

Fifthly, the ECI resorted to threats of criminal prosecution without a word on the merits of the representation. Sixthly, as a cartoon rightly puts it, when A runs to the police (i.e., the ECI) to point out that thieves C to E (the local Karnataka ECI officials) are running away, the police, instead of going after C to E, asks A to first submit an affidavit on pain of prosecution of the complainant.

Why have you not approached the judiciary yet over the Karnataka issue?

It is conceptually wrong to presuppose that the remedy for all ills, misgovernance, or partisan behaviour is only the Supreme Court. If this were true, the Supreme Court would have to stop functioning, being overwhelmed and submerged. The entire political process would become irrelevant. Raising awareness among the people through legitimate political campaigns would become unnecessary and superfluous. The essence of democracy (politocracy) cannot be replaced by judiocracy. Judicial adjudication is usually based on technical legalities and should never be considered an adequate or appropriate substitute for legitimate political campaigns.

The Election Commission says Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is meant to remove anomalies like those the Congress alleges in Karnataka.

The SIR is sub judice, but the Election Commission has never explained why the SIR is focused entirely on citizenship determination. The Election Commission’s stand that it will not consider either Aadhaar or its own Voter ID card is proof positive of the fact that it has converted the normal exercise of roll revision — based on checking physical residence, births, and deaths — into one of citizenship determination.

Nor has it explained how and from which statute the Election Commission derives this jurisdiction to decide citizenship, marginalising, sidelining, and supplanting the detailed procedure of the Foreigners’ Tribunals, and the Citizenship Act. The Election Commission also never bothers to explain why it suddenly embarked on SIR in July, with elections two to three months away, as opposed to the hiatus of two [years] and one year between the 2003 [SIR] exercise and the then Assembly and Parliamentary elections. This time squeeze by the Election Commission precludes all legal recourse and legitimate appellate remedies by aggrieved persons.

The Congress accuses theElection Commission of ‘colluding with the BJP to steal elections’. If so, why contest at all? Your ally Tejashwi Yadav has suggested boycotting the Bihar polls — does the Congress agree?

The united Opposition has not absolutely ruled out a boycott of the elections. However, no such decision has been taken. We have legitimate concerns about allowing a walkover to the BJP in a State where we have an extremely strong probability of winning. The perpetrators of voter fraud (i.e., the ruling regime) can hardly suggest that we boycott the elections and cede them a one-sided walkover victory.

The BJP accusesMr. Gandhi and your party of repeatedly attacking a Constitutional body.

When Constitutional custodians — not just of fundamental rights but of the Constitution’s basic structure — abdicate their responsibilities, should the Opposition bow to them with flattering praise, or, in the world’s largest democracy, act as a vibrant check, exposing their abdication and irresponsibility? Who will guard the guardians if not the Opposition? Do you expect the ruling dispensation, the chief beneficiary of the Election Commission’s laxity, to take corrective action?

The Congress plans a mass campaign on alleged vote theft. How will this help politically?

It is but natural that a political campaign has to be built around the humongous illegalities and irregularities going on in the name of electoral roll revision. It is vital to educate the voter and to exhort him to be highly vigilant against such undemocratic disenfranchisement. It is a wholly valid and necessary political campaign, and directly related to the Bihar election, which we are fully confident of winning. Don’t forget that the Karnataka sample is the tip of the iceberg. The number could be exponentially high if you add the high likelihood of wrongful deletion.