Gillty on every count

Let us begin with pride, that which goeth before destruction8217;. I cannot think of a greater display of sickening arrogance than a Chief Election Commissioner who dares describe the voters of India as half literate8217; who may be easily led astray by surveys and exit polls.

India is far from rich, but we can be justifiably proud of our record as the world8217;s largest democracy. But here comes Mr. Gill. No, he insinuates, those voters who upheld the parliamentary system in twelve successive Lok Sabha polls are actually dumb, drivencattle, unable to sift between fact and fiction.

If you ask me, Gill is wrong on every count. Even assuming every exit poll is deliberately skewed 8212; a dubious premise to begin with 8212; I have never known such propaganda to work; all the outpourings of A.I.R. and Doordarshan couldn8217;t save Indira Gandhi from a hammering in 1977. And in any case, I doubt if such surveys are high on the reading list of any half-literate8217;!What brought forth this nauseating outpouring of pride from Gill? Well, that brings up the Chief Election Commissioner8217;s other defining characteristics 8212; avarice, envy, and lust.

Gill comes off as a very greedy man. Oh, not for money, but he certainly evidences what the Oxford English Dictionary defines as the eager desire to get or keep something for oneself8217;, a lust for power in this instance. I could be wrong, but he seems to envy the authority granted to elected representatives and wants to usurp it without bothering to be tested by half-literate8217; voters.

Wouldn8217;t it be moredemocratic, he once allegedly pondered aloud, if the entire machinery of governance came under the Election Commission once the poll process began? That way, there would be no possibility of the party in power being able to unfairly influence the electorate. Those half-literate8217; men and women at whom Gill turns up his nose, remember? When this selfless offer found no takers amongst the politicians, the Chief Election Commissioner turned to a softer target 8212; the media.

Thou shalt print no surveys or exit-polls!8217; went the edict from Nirvachan Sadan. Thou shalt not travel with the Prime Minister!8217; followed on its heels. Hey, who elected you editor-in-chief of every newspaper, magazine, and news channel, Mr. Gill, or gave you the power to blue-pencil stories? Or are you, perhaps, unaware of the difference between Chief Election Commissioner and Chief Censor?

In passing, can we really believe that the Election Commission shall be unbiased when the Chief Election Commissioner8217;s lawyer of choice is noneother than Kapil Sibal, the Congress8217;s official spokesman? Quizzed on the topic, Gill8217;s sniggering response was, 8220;Well, we may choose Arun Jaitley next time!8221; 8212; a stupid quip that would be hooted at in a school debate.

Or take a look at the men appointed as the Election Commission8217;s observers in Bellary and Amethi. D.K. Rao, whose name popped up in the infamous Tandoor murder case, was sent to Amethi; his chief distinction there was to pay homage to Priyanka Vadra Gandhi. Krishnan, the observer in Bellary, was once handpicked by a Congress regime to serve in Sultanpur the district headquarters for Amethi. I have nothing against either man, but it would have been wiser to post them in less sensitive constituencies. Their appointments seem to have been cases of a slothful Election Commission not doing its homework. But they aren8217;t isolated instances of that sin.

Take the issuance of identity cards. A few years ago, Laloo Prasad Yadav approached the courts for fear that the Commission might postponepolls indefinitely until the photo-card scheme was substantially complete. The Supreme Court gave the commonsense ruling that the issuance of identity cards, however desirable in itself, shouldn8217;t act as a road block to elections. But their Lordships certainly didn8217;t say the scheme wasn8217;t required at all; can you think of any visible progress over the past three years?

The go-slow on the issuance of identity cards is just one of many instances where the Election Commission was caught napping. In fact, the six-month gap between the fall of the Vajpayee ministry and the completion of the election process is largely the fault of the Election Commission. We are in the middle of revising the electoral rolls, was the excuse on hand in April, Let the process be completed so that even those newly come of age may vote.8217;This was horrible logic in any case 8212; only those who were eighteen by New Year8217;s Day of 1999 were to be enrolled. If you celebrated your eighteenth birthday later than that, you were out of luck.But what most people don8217;t know is that it was the statutory duty of the Election Commission to have the rolls ready no later than March 31, 1999. Why did Gill8217;s men shirk this responsibility?

Come to that, even the additional time taken by the Election Commission resulted in nothing but a sloppy job. That may sound harsh, but how else would you describe an exercise where even Election Commissioner Krishnamoorthy found his name absent from the rolls?

This Election Commission is the most voluble one we have seen in fifty years. It made headlines by trying to dictate to politicians from the prime minister down. It tried to impose its authority on the media, backing off only when the Supreme Court came to the rescue. But it has been unusually reticent when it comes to rectifying its own flaws.

If you ask me, the problem isn8217;t the half-literate8217; electorate, but a half-efficient8217; Election Commission trying to cover up its own sins of omission and commission by creating controversies elsewhere. Which mightexplain the unfortunate exchange of words between George Fernandes and the Commission.

Given the many sins of the Election Commission, isn8217;t it time to write a model code of conduct for the three wise men of Nirvachan Sadan?