Opinion Rahul, Priyanka name-calling ECs is a new low

For some time now, the Election Commission of India has seemed to be less than what it used to be. The institution that, ever since it was re-energised in the 1990s, has ranked among India’s most trusted, overseeing and ensuring free and fair elections in the world’s most diverse democracy, has invited questions about its impartiality. That said, there is no justification for the crude and unseemly attack mounted on it by India’s main opposition party. At its “vote chori” rally in the capital’s Ramlila Maidan Sunday, Congress leaders took their criticism of the EC to a new graceless pitch — Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi called out the names of the three Election Commissioners, and openly promised, or threatened, retribution through a “retroactive law” if Congress comes to power. The ECs will face action, they warned, whatever be their current immunity. Congress’s public threat-making to a constitutional body, by its two first-family members, is part of the party’s shrill politics on “vote chori”. In sidestepping due process, however, and in framing it in the language of irresponsibility, the party that has ruled the country for long years undermines itself more than the EC.

Its successive electoral defeats have evidently unsettled the Congress, but by raising the decibel levels, it draws attention to its own flailing. Targeting the EC and the EVM, or calling for a return to the ballot paper, is a poor stand-in for the political work the party refuses to do, be it in terms of reconnecting to the people, or looking within. Of course, if the party has verifiable proof about flaws in the poll process, it must make its case. As the Karnataka investigation shows, there have been glaring irregularities in Aland. But as an important stakeholder in the health of India’s democracy, Congress needs to do it step by procedural step, with homework and rigour, not by taking a position outside the process, hurling questions and not waiting for answers, making sweeping generalisations and spectre-mongering.

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The integrity of the poll process lies at the heart of the democratic compact. It must not become the stuff of political blame-games. Conversations on it must be informed by respect for the process and the dignity of the institution, not indiscriminate and self-serving fault-finding. Responding to criticism, the CEC often sounds like a spokesperson of the ruling party. That diminishes the CEC but Rahul and Priyanka’s Sunday smear is a new low.