‘Secrecy’ in funding, voter roll deletions, ‘lack of trust’ in EVMs: Activists demand EC action

Pointing to “increased secrecy” in political funding, reports of “arbitrary deletions” in electoral rolls, and a “lack of public trust” in EVMs, a group of 60 eminent citizens have demanded that the Election Commission of India take several steps to recalibrate the poll process.

In a memorandum that will soon be submitted to the EC, and has been released for public endorsement, the signatories – including former chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah and activist Anjali Bhardwaj – said that a Citizens’ Commission on Elections set up under Justice Madan Lokur had made several recommendations. 

Talking about the memorandum at a press conference organised by the Association for Democratic Reforms in Delhi on Monday, Habibullah said this citizens’ commission had pointed to several major concerns pertaining to the integrity of voting and counting, electoral rolls and party funding.

The memorandum makes demands specific to these concerns.

To ensure the integrity of voting and counting, the memorandum states the VVPAT system should be re-calibrated to be fully voter-verifiable. “A voter should be able to get the VVPAT slip in her hand and cast it in a chip-free ballot box for the vote to be valid. These VVPAT slips should be fully counted first for all constituencies before the results are declared. For this purpose, VVPAT slips should be larger in size and must be printed in such a manner that they can be preserved for a minimum of five years.”

“Subsequently, the results of the counting of VVPAT slips should be cross verified with the electronic tallies of the EVMs for every constituency before the results are declared. In case of any mismatch, the counting of the VVPAT slips should be treated as the final result as also laid down in Rule 56(d)(4)(b) of The Conduct of the Election (Amendment) Rules, 2013.”

To ensure the integrity of electoral rolls, it states that the ECI “must ensure that prior notice is issued to every voter whose name is proposed to be deleted. This has also been directed by the Supreme Court in its recent judgment.” “The ECI should immediately implement a transparent and public system of social Audit of electoral Rolls. Voter’s lists must be publicly displayed in the most accessible manner and also made available on the ECI website in a searchable database. Citizens should be empowered to check their own information as well as that of bogus names and duplicates in their area.”

About party funding, the memorandum states the commission must “strongly advocate for transparency in political party funding and ensure that money-power does not sway elections and their outcome. It must oppose electoral bonds that provide for unlimited anonymous funding of political parties.”

At the press conference, Anjali Bhardwaj questioned the EC’s change in stance on electoral bonds between 2019 and 2021. She said the commission had initially raised several concerns in the Supreme Court. The EC, she said, had stated that the amendments to various laws prevented the commission from carrying out its oversight functions as there was no provision of  disclosure of the source of funds, and that the changes to FCRA would “allow unchecked foreign funding of political parties in India which could lead to Indian policies being  influenced by foreign companies”. However, in 2021 during the hearing of the electoral bond case in the Supreme Court, the advocate representing the EC supported the scheme. 

Jagdeep Chhokar of ADR said there have been several reports from different states about a large number of deletions, including those pertaining to voters belonging to minority communities and disadvantaged groups. 

Among the memorandum's signatories are former bureaucrats, activists, lawyers and writers, including M G Devasahayam, Wajahat Habibullah, Jagdeep Chhokar, Aruna Roy, Medha Patkar, Maxwell Pereira, Justice Hariparanthaman, Prashant Bhushan, Shabnam Hashmi, Anjali Bhardwaj, EAS Sarma, Julio Ribeiro, Ashok Kumar Sharma, Sundar Burra, and Feroze Mithiborwala.