5 Congress MPs in letter to party poll chief: concerns on transparency, fairness

In their letter to Mistry, Lok Sabha MPs Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari, Karti Chidambaram, Pradyut Bordoloi and Abdul Khaleque wrote: “We, the five undersigned, as Members of Parliament of the Indian National Congress, are concerned about the transparency and fairness of the election process for the President of our party.”

Mistry had earlier said that the rolls cannot be placed in the public domain citing absence of precedence and arguing that the presidential election is an internal matter of the party and the electoral rolls could be misused if rivals manage to access them.

Countering Mistry’s arguments, the joint letter from the MPs stated: “It is unfortunate that an erroneous interpretation is being given to our demand of releasing electoral rolls. We are not suggesting that any internal document of the party should be released in a manner that may give an opportunity to those who wish us ill to misuse the information contained therein.”

The letter said: “We are rather of the firm opinion that before the commencement of the nomination process, the party’s Central Election Authority (CEA) must provide a list of Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates that make up the electoral college. This list must be made available in order to verify who is entitled to nominate a candidate and who is entitled to vote.”

The MPs wrote: “In case the CEA has any concerns with respect to releasing the electoral rolls publicly, it must put in place a mechanism to securely share this information with all electors and potential candidates. Electors and candidates cannot be expected to go to all 28 PCCs and 9 Union Territorial units across the country to verify the electoral rolls.”

The MPs wrote that such a move “will remove any unwarranted arbitrariness from the election process. As long as this demand is met, our concern about transparency — a sine qua non in any free and fair election — will be met”.

Party sources told The Indian Express that some of these five MPs have written separate letters to Mistry as well. Last week, The Indian Express reported that Tharoor and Bordoloi, an MP from Assam’s Nagaon, had written separate letters to Mistry, requesting him to make the electoral rolls public.

Tharoor, who is said to be considering running for the top post, had earlier endorsed his G 23 colleague Manish Tewari’s demand that the list of PCC delegates, who form the 9,000-odd electoral college in the party, be made public. Tewari had asked how the process could be fair unless the rolls were made public. Lok Sabha MP Karti Chidambaram, too, had come out in support of Tewari’s demand.