Opinion Express View on new CEC: He is taking office in a challenging hour, must engage with all stakeholders

New Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar comes to his office in a challenging moment for the Election Commission. To begin with, there is controversy over the appointment. Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, part of the three-member panel, has made his protest over the “midnight decision” public, alleging it was “disrespectful” and “discourteous” of the government to go ahead while the appointment process was being challenged. The government acted as per the law it enacted after being prodded by the SC; this controversy will be resolved after the issue gets its day in court. But the new CEC’s task is an arduous one. He takes charge amid a heightened political polarisation — on one end is a government entering a third term with a pared-down tally but notching up successive electoral gains, and on the other, an Opposition with a larger foothold but still flailing for a way forward. The EC also shows signs of an institutional fraying that is both the cause and result of a larger denting of public trust — the graph of the sleepy institution that was awakened to its formidable constitutional mandate and powers by then CEC TN Seshan in the 1990s can be said to have waxed and waned after that, even as it continues to draw admiration for its administration of one of the most unique and complex tasks of election management.

In recent elections, the Opposition has stepped up the decibel levels of questions about the fairness of the poll process. These have ranged from a clamour over the alleged unreliability of EVMs to doubts over delays in making turnout data public to accusations of illegitimate additions and deletions in electoral rolls. There is more noise and little evidence for many of these allegations —which have not withstood the scrutiny of the court. The impression that they are being used as stand-ins for a harder reckoning by the elections’ losers is also unavoidable. Outgoing CEC Rajiv Kumar has a point, therefore, when he expresses concern over the spread of rumour, and for the EC being “unfairly blamed by those unwilling to accept electoral outcomes”. Having said that, however, CEC Gyanesh Kumar must pause and ask what the EC has done, and what it can do, to shore up faith in one of India’s most distinguished institutions. There are genuine concerns that the powerful are able to tilt the playing field, or the election calendar, to their advantage, and anxieties that the poll monitor has given the ruling party the benefit of the doubt. Rajiv Kumar had joined the poll panel amid a controversy over the EC’s alleged double standard over Model Code of Conduct violations in 2019 — and it was in his tenure as CEC that the Commission’s decision to send notices to party presidents for words spoken by their leaders marked a dubious first.

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The EC needs to address apprehensions about its conduct in an open and transparent manner. It must engage with all players and stakeholders — as the monitorial institution, it cannot appear either evasive or combative vis-a-vis the Opposition’s concerns. The new CEC could begin by opening the doors of his institution to all those who might have a question — and draft his responses in a tone that echoes the impartial voice of a constitutional authority, not that of an angry outburst by a party spokesperson. Welcome, CEC Gyanesh Kumar.