New Delhi: As Indian citizens will elect their political representatives for the 18th Lok Sabha in the upcoming months, five scholars based in India and abroad have come together to form a dedicated panel to monitor the polls. The group plans to point out possible violations in the Model Code of Conduct and whether there is an erosion of a level playing field for political parties and voters from different communities.
Drawing from an understanding that the use of money, muscle and institutional corruption over the years may have compromised the conduct of a totally free and fair elections in India, one of the biggest democracies in the world, the members of the panel believe that a civil society initiative like theirs may raise concerns of the citizens more pertinently.
The members of the “Independent panel for monitoring Indian elections – 2024” are Neera Chandhoke (National Fellow at Indian Council of Social Science Research, and retd. Professor, Delhi University, India), Dr Thomas Daffern (philosopher and historian; chairman of World Intellectuals Wisdom Forum; Director, International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy (France and UK); Convenor, Commonwealth Interfaith Network), Sakhawat Hossain (former election commissioner of Bangladesh), Dr Harish Karnick (former professor, IIT, Kanpur), Dr Sebastian Morris (former professor, IIM, Ahmedabad) and Professor Rahul Mukherji (Professor & Chair, Modern Politics of South Asia, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany).
The panel, in a pre-election report, said that the idea to form a group came from concerns raised by civil society groups regarding the “credibility of the Election Commission of India, to ensure a level-playing field between political parties, and address grievances of stakeholders”, as 970 million Indian voters will cast their votes in April-May 2024.
“Citizens groups from many parts of the country are voicing their worry that elections will not be free and fair, hence not genuine. In specific regions, there is also anguish about the likely denial of elections as well as of exclusion of vulnerable groups from voting,” the report said. It added that “securing the will of the people” and “ensuring a free and fair elections” are two cornerstones of a representative democracy.
The report flagged the following concerns raised by the Indian media in the last few years – 30 million Muslim voters, 40 million voters, and a number of Christians were missing from the electoral rolls of 2019. The report also raised its protest against the ECI and the Centre’s failure to conduct assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir since 2018. It said that the ECI marked almost one lakh voters as “doubtful voters or D-voters”, most of them Bengali-speaking Muslims, risking their right to vote. It said that that in states in territories like Jammu and Kashmir and Assam, the delimitation exercise has disadvantaged Muslims and the possibility of their proportionate representation in the Lok Sabha.
“BJP-led central government has systematically targeted opposition parties, whilst it has sought to strengthen the BJP’s hold. Central investigating agencies have initiated a slew of criminal cases against opposition leaders. According to one report, 90% of all cases against political parties since 2014, by Central Bureau of Investigations and Enforcement Directorate, have been against opposition parties,” the report said.
Similarly, the panel was concerned about the now defunct electoral bonds scheme, an opaque method of collecting donations by political parties, that has led to the ruling BJP cornering almost 50% of the total donations between 2017 and 2023.
“There is evidence of arm-twisting too, reports claiming 30 companies donated $40 million to BJP after they faced criminal investigations,” it said.
Moreover, the panel said that it was worried about the persistent refusal of the ECI to address possible flaws with the electronic voting machines (EVM) and demands to ensure 100% Voter Verified Paper and Audit Trail (VVPAT) during voting.
It further said that the ECI does not “provide guarantees against hacking, tampering, and spurious vote injections”, leading to a situation where the EVM-VVPAT system was seen as “not robust”.
It also flagged its concerns about the increasing propensity of the ruling BJP to “monopolise” the information space, exclude opposition political parties, and control Indian media and its advertisement-driven revenue model.
“Pro-BJP actors also dominate social media. BJP’s IT Cell has been accused of deliberately stoking communal hatred and spreading disinformation, under protection provided by its top leadership. BJP-led central and state governments have also intensified their muzzling of independent media and fact-checkers, including through the misuse of anti-terror and national security laws,” the report said.
“BJP and allied groups seem to have doubled down on religious polarisation for electoral gains – PM Narendra Modi’s presiding over the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya in January 2024, and the central government announcing rules to the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act 2019, being cases in point. Direct calls to violence against Muslims and other minorities, continue, alongside dehumanising rhetoric, by influential leaders, in online as well as physical spaces,” the report said.
The panel noted the “emerging threats posed by AI- powered deepfake and other technology”, and the failure of ECI to strictly enforce “existing laws, rules and model code for free and fair elections”.
It also alleged that the ECI appears to have a “pro-government bias” in the way it decided the elections dates. The panel also pointed out that the appointment of the election commissioners is now being done by the Narendra Modi government empowering itself with a “virtual veto” power.
It then called upon the ECI to “be attentive to complaints where they concern citizens’ right to universal suffrage, and on violations of MCC”.
