Poll vaults

The moment of pause which intervenes between the last vote being polled and the last vote being counted lends itself to introspection on elections, on democracy, and the link between them. Each set of elections throws up its own peculiar challenges. The big gain this time was that the West Bengal polls remained relatively free of the violence and intimidation that had become almost intrinsic to them. The ruling Left Front government will not acknowledge this, of course, and Jyoti Basu has already claimed for the West Bengal government all credit for conducting “peaceful elections”. But it cannot but redound to the credit of the Election Commission that the latest exercise is seen to be one of the most free and fair that the state — under one-party rule since 1977 — has witnessed in a very long time.

West Bengal is by no means the last frontier for the Election Commission. Uttar Pradesh looms large on the electoral calendar. But the EC’s experience in conducting two important elections in Bihar and West Bengal over the last six months, should help it greatly in managing next year’s polling in the largest state in the country. The measures this time ranged from the significant — like the careful revision of electoral rolls that saw lakhs of bogus names being weeded out and the staggering of polls into five phases — to the discreet — telephone numbers of officials were prominently displayed outside all booths, for instance. These efforts indicate how and why the EC has come to be regarded as arguably the country’s most credible institution.

The Election Commission — unlike many politicians and indeed voters — takes both politics and politicians seriously. It has therefore constantly striven to reform the electoral process and make it more meaningful to the citizen. The system has benefitted from many of the interventions promoted by successive chief election commissioners — sometimes in the teeth of great opposition from the political class. To these stalwarts, and many others like them who presided as fiercely neutral umpires on the pitch of Indian democracy, we owe a debt of gratitude. Now let us await the outcome of the EC’s latest labours.