2000 once again: questions emerge on transparency in Cong chief polls

His supporters had alleged that there were bogus names in the electoral rolls. The Prasada camp had also claimed that he had not been given addresses of delegates, which hampered his efforts to marshall support. In fact, even before he threw his hat in the ring, Prasada had written to the party’s central election authority (CEA), raising questions on the failure to publish the Congress delegates’ list.

The same charges have returned to haunt the party.

Firing the first salvo on Wednesday, Lok Sabha MP and G-23 member Manish Tewari asked, “how can there be a fair and free election without a publicly available electoral roll.” He said names and addresses of electors must be put up on the party website in a transparent manner — that, he said, will be the essence of a fair and free process.

His remarks came three days after his G-23 colleague, Anand Sharma, raised the same issue at the Congress Working Committee (CWC), meeting which approved the election schedule. Sharma had argued that there was no clarity on the approximately 9,000 PCC delegates.

In an interview to The Indian Express on Tuesday, Madhusudan Mistry, chairman of the party’s CEA, however, said that the electoral rolls cannot be placed in public domain. “The electoral rolls are with PCCs. Those who want to see it can contact PCCs. Second, those who want to file a nomination…we will give the same to them. It is not for the general public. It is an organisational election, our members can have it. It is our property,” he had said.

Pointing out that the election is not being held for 28 PCCs and eight territorial Congress committees, Tewari asked, “Why should someone have to go to every PCC office in the country to find out who the electors are? This does not happen (even) in a club election. In the interest of fairness and transparency, I urge your good self to publish the entire list of electors on the Congress website. How can someone consider running if he/ she does not know who electors are.”

He also said, “If someone has to file his/her nomination and gets it proposed by 10 Congresspersons, as is the requirement, CEA can reject it saying they are not valid electors.”

Tewari received support from fellow Lok Sabha MP Karti Chidambaram, who said “every election needs a well-defined and clear electoral college”. Karti said, “The process of forming the electoral college must also be clear, well-defined, and transparent. An ad hoc electoral college is no electoral college.”

Karti also said “reformists are not rebels”.

Tewari said Karti was spot on. “For any election to be kosher, the electoral college must be constitutionally constituted,” he said. “I read in the papers that Anand Sharma had articulated this widely shared concern in the CWC and he even publicly confirmed that he had raised it.”

Hours later, another G-23 member, Shashi Tharoor, who is reported to be seriously considering contesting the polls, concurred with Tewari. He told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram: “Certainly I think it’s important that everybody should have transparency on electoral rolls. If that’s what Manish has asked for, I am sure it’s a principle that everybody would agree (with). Everybody should know who can nominate and who can vote. There is nothing wrong with that.”

The debate over electoral rolls comes days after veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned from the party. Since then, he has called the organisational election a “farce”, arguing that the electoral rolls were prepared by some leaders sitting in Delhi. In his resignation letter, Azad had alleged that the situation in the Congress has reached such a point of no return and that proxies are now being propped up to take over the party leadership.

He had argued that the leader chosen for the post will be little more than a “puppet”.