'Conduct Of Elections Has Become Suspicious'

'Whenever the hike in voting percentage is more, the NDA gains more, and when the hike is negligible, the NDA falls.'
'I have established this in UP, Haryana and Jharkhand.'

One of the most surprising election results of 2024 came from Maharashtra.

Nobody expected the ruling Mahayuti party to sweep the elections.

Not just the Opposition parties, many political commentators also have several unanswered questions regarding the way the election was conducted.

"The entire process tells me the Election Commission has proved to be partial. During the Lok Sabha polling also, there were huge discrepancies. Even today, the second phase of polling data (of the Lok Sabha election) is not fully in the public domain. The final figures of the first phase were released after 15 days, and 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th after 4 days, 5 days, 4 days, 5 days by the Election Commission. In almost 79 Lok Sabha seats, you could see that this played a mischief," well-known political economist and commentator Parakala Prabhakar tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier in the first of a two-part interview.

You wrote about the glaring difference in the voting percentage put out by the Election Commission around 6 pm and later at night.
What made you suspicious about the voting percentage?

Reason number one: The reports from the ground were clearly against the incumbent government.

So, the result was a surprise to me. To many other people too. It is not a question of being happy or unhappy, or being in agreement or disagreement with the result.

The question is about the integrity of the process. If it is a right process, you don't disagree with it.

Here is a case where the popular feeling in most of the cases is against the incumbent government, and the popular opposition to it was also very palpable.

This is what P C Chacko told me when I interviewed him after the election results.

Yes, it was quite evident from the gatherings of the respective blocks and the respective rallies of the leaders.

Reason two. Even during the Lok Sabha elections also, I was tracking the conduct of the Election Commission.

The manner in which the present Election Commission is structured and the appointments to the commission were made caused suspicion about the integrity of the commission.

If you recall, an incumbent election commissioner suddenly resigned for unexplained reasons. Then, in a hurry, the rules governing the appointment of the election commissioners were amended thereby the role of the Supreme Court Chief Justice was eliminated.

In effect, the appointment became like the appointment of any other government secretary. That was because there was no impartial member in the committee.

Now, you have the prime minister, a minister of his choice and the leader of the Opposition. So, even if the leader of the Opposition deferred, the majority is with the government.

What happened in the process was when the committee that was skewed in favour of the government met, the then leader of the Opposition (Adhir Ranjan Choudhary) said that he was given a huge list of names just before the committee met, and that it was just impossible for him to vet all the names. He walked out of the meeting.

So, the appointments were made by the government like you make the appointment of a scretary.

Let us give the benefit of doubt to these people. Even if they were appointed by the government, after assuming the office, they could still live up to the mandate of conducting a free and fair election. It is possible.

Did you get the feeling that they were not able to conduct a free and fair election, and that they were not impartial?

Yes. In the sense that the implementation of the model code of conduct was very one sided. They did not take any action against the ruling party, especially the prime minister.

On the other hand, the largest Opposition party's bank accounts were frozen handicapping the main Opposition.

That was during the Lok Sabha elections...

Yes, I am talking about the Lok Sabha election. I want to start from the beginning.

You asked me why I suspect the numbers. The reason is, the entire process tells me the Election Commission has proved to be partial.

During the Lok Sabha polling also, there were huge discrepancies. Even today, the second phase of polling data (of the Lok Sabha election) is not fully in the public domain.

The final figures of the first phase were released after 15 days, and 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th after 4 days, 5 days, 4 days, 5 days by the Election Commission.

In almost 79 Lok Sabha seats, you could see that this played a mischief.

After the Lok Sabha elections, the conduct of the assembly elections also became suspicious.

If you look at Haryana, the first assembly election after the Lok Sabha election, you will see a very similar pattern.

You will see about 6% to 7% difference between the first figure and the revised final figure.

In Haryana, the ground reality was very, very, anti-incumbent government.

Did the Haryana results come as a shock to you?

Yes. That's the reason I, along with some of my colleagues, went into the numbers. We found that in 10 districts in Haryana, the discrepancy between the primary figure and the final figure was almost about 10% to 12%.

When there is more 10% or more than 10% in 10 districts, out of the 44 seats in those 10 districts, the BJP-NDA won 37.

In the rest of the 12 districts, where the discrepancy was low, the BJP-NDA won only 11 seats out of 46.

You will see that there is a huge amount of gain for the BJP-NDA when the discrepancy is larger.

And the BJP did not do well at all when the discrepancy was marginal.

Now, let's go back to the Lok Sabha elections in UP.

UP went to polls in 5 phases. In the 3rd phase, the discrepancy between the primary figure and the final figure was 0.2%. In the 4th phase, the discrepancy was 0.34%. In the 5th, it was 0.23% and in the 6th, it was 0.01%. In the 7th, it was 0.25%. The discrepancy, as you see was negligible.

The result showed the NDA dwindling from 62 seats (in 2019) to 36!

Now, we go to Jharkhand which went to polls in 2 phases. The discrepancy in the 1st phase was 1.62% and NDA wins 17 out of 43. In the 2nd phase, the discrepancy was 0.86% and the NDA got only 7 out of 38.

You can see the co-relation. Whenever the hike is more, the NDA gains more, and when the hike is negligible, the NDA falls.

I have established this in UP, Haryana and Jharkhand.

Now, we come to Maharashtra.

You saw the same pattern in Maharashtra too?

Maharashtra went to polls in one phase on the 20th.

At 5 pm, the Election Commission's announcement says the polling percentage was 58.22%. Then there was a second announcement at 11:30 in the night. It said 65.02%.

If you convert the percentage to gross number of votes, it works out to be 65,97,708 votes. A hike of 6.80%.

It doesn't stop there.

The counting was on the 23rd morning. But there was a third announcement on the 22nd afternoon, just a few hours before the counting! Then the Election Commission announces another figure which was 1.03% more than the 2nd figure of 65.02%.

How much does this translate to gross votes? 999,359 votes.

Now, let's add all the three hikes together, which is a figure of 75,97,067 votes (65,97,708 +9,99359). Roughly 76 lakh votes!

The election commissioner later said that 76 lakh votes meant just 76 votes per booth.

Yes, people can come at the last minute and cast their votes.

But there are strict guidelines in the election manual. One is, when the official time of poll closes, whoever is within the premises of the booth can exercise their franchise however long it takes. But the gate will have to closed so that nobody enters the premises after the stipulated time.

Two, either a police official or a polling official should be posted there to see that no new person comes in.

The third condition is, all the people who are in the queue to be given paper slips; the one bearing number 1 to the last person near the gate and the last number to the first person in the queue.

Then, you will know how many people have entered and in which booth.

One more thing. Those who are waiting in the queue and given paper slips have to be videographed.

This is the rule book.

When I asked a former chief election commissioner about the discrepancy in the first figure and the final figure, he said till late at night, they would be getting the numbers from various booths, and that was why the number at 7 pm would be different from the number at 11 pm.

If that is the case, the Election Commission is bound to tell us which were the booths where people waited and also show us the video.

Next. Even when we had paper ballots with very rudimentary kind of communication structure, the updating of the final figure did not take this long.

Today, when you have the EVMs, you just press the button, and you get the figure. And the polling officer had to just upload the number on the app.

Moreover, they are all well-connected.

So, the time gap cannot be justified.

For argument's sake, when you say there were people waiting to vote, I am asking which were the booths they waited? They should have the videos also.

Are they saying in all the 1 lakh booths, people were waiting uniformly?

But the answers were not coming from the Election Commission.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com