This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Anand Vardhan are joined by former Election Commissioner of India Ashok Lavasa. Later, Newslaundry’s Astha Savyasachi joins the panel to discuss her big story this week on the Adani Group. 

The discussion begins with the Indian Express investigation into reported differences among the Election Commission’s top leadership, and the debate over whether this amounts to “dissent”. Lavasa cautions against getting consumed by the characterisation, arguing that the focus should instead remain on the substantive issues raised by the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and their implications for voters.

“Please don’t get waylaid by this debate on dissent. We must focus on the real issues affecting the SIR which have impacted the right to vote. And so even if the dissent was there or not there, the point is that all the issues raised are in connection with the Special Intensive Revision, which has been objected to by the people verbally, in writing, in courts, on the streets.”

The conversation then moves to the Election Commission’s centralised electoral-roll system and the concerns around how technological systems interact with the legal responsibilities of election officials. Lavasa draws a distinction between centralising data for efficiency and centralising operational control in a way that could interfere with legally empowered officers:

"Any centralised system devised by the Election Commission which comes in the way of discharge of legal duties is a problem. And just one more point about the centralisation — I don’t think anybody can object to data centralisation as such, because we all know that data management can be efficiently managed if it is centralised. So what I was saying is that to have a centralised data system for data management is one thing; to have operational control of that system to the disadvantage of the legally empowered [officer]…”

Manisha brings the discussion back to the experience of ordinary voters. Beyond the institutional disagreements within the Commission, she questions what the process means for citizens trying to exercise their right to vote. “Why are you putting the people of this country through this exercise, which is cruel? And why are you making voting such a contested, secret privilege?”

Abhinandan similarly argues that the larger issue goes beyond the internal workings of the Commission and concerns the fundamental principles at stake. “I think the fundamental principle of democracy is being challenged here, and that is what needs to be discussed rather than all this.”

The panel also discusses Astha’s investigation into the Adani Group’s acquisitions of companies through the insolvency process, examining the patterns and anomalies that emerged from the cases studied.

All this and more.