New Delhi, July 3: INDIA bloc parties in their joint memorandum to the Chief Jistice of India Surya Kant highlighted that they were reaching out to him as they believed that “democracy is in jeopardy” and alleged partisan conduct by the Election Commission of India (ECI), and misuse of central investigative agencies against Opposition parties.
The memorandum that was sent to the CJI on June 28 was shared by Congress general secretary Organisation KC Venugopal.
The six page letter to the CJI has been signed by leaders of 23 Opposition parties, and an independent MP Kapil Sibal, it detailed concerns over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal and Bihar.
The leaders also made a direct accusation, alleging that they believed recently conducted elections in Delhi, Haryana, and Maharashtra had been “manipulated”.
The leaders said they were approaching the court because they believed democratic institutions were under strain and that electoral outcomes in several instances did not accurately reflect the will of the people.
They also warned that if the judiciary fails to respond to such concerns, it would signal “a complete breakdown of the Republic”.
The letter also signed by DMK and AAP, which have off late stayed away from the INDIA bloc highlighted: “We all, representing like-minded political parties, firmly opposed to the BJP, believe that the electoral process is being manipulated and outcomes in multiple instances do not reflect the will of the people.”
It highlighted that how the Election Commission (EC) is constituted is and has always been decided by the government in power.
“Prior to 2014, there were hardly any telling instances, barring a few exceptions, when questions were raised about the integrity of persons in the Commission. But since 2014, almost every appointment made by the government has been of persons closely associated with it and seen to be doing the bidding of the government, brazenly, to manipulate the outcome of election results.
Referring to the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Anoop Baranwal case, they argued that judicial concerns about the process of appointing Election Commissioners remained relevant.
The letter highlighted that absence of legislation by Parliament the Supreme Court had opined that till a law is framed by Parliament, the Chief Election Commissioner shall be appointed by a Committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
“Parliament later made a law providing for a committee comprising the Prime Minister, a Union Minister nominated by him, and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. The legislation did away with the presence of the Chief Justice of India as a Member of the committee thereby controlling the appointment process. That law has been challenged and is pending adjudication before this Court,” it said.
It also said that the “reason for our grave concern is the brazen biased conduct of the Election Commission, in particular the Chief Election Commissioner”.
“There has been open, unabashed support of the BJP during the course of and in the outcome of electoral processes. The Commission has not been evenhanded by choosing not to take action when the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) is breached by the political party in power- all this while targeting those in the opposition. On multiple occasions, the Commission had maintained a stoic silence when openly toxic, communal statements contrary to the principles enunciated in the MCC, are routinely made by those in the BJP,” it alleged.
Talking about the role of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, the letter read, “The unkindest cut of all happened when the Election Commission and in particular the Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, chose to allegedly clean up the electoral rolls in each state to ensure that they truly represent those who are entitled to vote, as provided for in the Constitution and the provisions of the Representation of People Act, 1951.”
“The SIR process of sanitising the electoral rolls, according to the Chief Election Commissioner, was required to be done to ensure their integrity. But the result is quite the opposite,” it said.
“The experiment of the SIR was first launched in Bihar. The political rhetoric seeking to rationalise this process centered around the alleged infiltration of Bangladeshis into the Bihar electoral rolls. Now that the Bihar Assembly elections are over, there is absolutely no data to suggest that such an infiltration indeed took place nor has the Election Commission made public any data with respect to the number of Bangladeshis having illegally acquired the right to vote in India,” it read.
It also highlighted that the massive SIR exercise just before the assembly elections, was “ill-timed and its faulty implementation a monumental disaster”.
The letter highlighted that the documentation process, adopted for the first time, was “inherently exclusionary and politically motivated”.
It alleged that the verification of voters based on filling forms and production of documents, questioning citizenship, left voters disenfranchised.
It also pointed out that lakhs of voters did not possess the required documents and many of them did not have the capacity to fill forms and forward them as mandated, which was particularly true of those who are poor, uneducated, including Dalits, Adivasis, members of the minority community and migrant workers.
It also noted that there were instances, that the Commission was aware of, where videos circulating on the social media showed booth level officers themselves filling the forms by forging signatures, and in some instances, uploading these forms without the consent of the voters and even deceased persons were shown to be submitting forms.
“There was complete lack of transparency and administrative confusion in the implementation of this process exacerbated by the timeframe within which it was required to be done. Instructions of the Commission were changed midway from time to time. There was confusion even amongst election officials,” it alleged.
The situation became worse in West Bengal, where, the Opposition said, the government was under siege with the presence of 2.4 lakh CAPF personnel. “To put this in context, 3.5 lakh CAPF personnel were deployed for the entire Lok Sabha election in 2024,” the letter pointed out. The letter also complained of the arbitrary removal of voters under a “never used before category” and of logical discrepancies that had led to the exclusion of nearly 25 lakh voters.
“We believe that recently conducted elections in Delhi, Haryana and Maharashtra were also manipulated,” the letter said.
The INDIA bloc further raised concerns about the electoral process ahead of assembly elections due in several states, amd said “serious questions” were also being raised about electronic voting, and “in particular about the role of electronic voting machines”.
The Opposition demanded the immediate suspension of the SIR, arguing that such a comprehensive overhaul of the electoral rolls should be undertaken only when the next Assembly election is at least five years away.
This, they said, would allow Commission representatives to verify voters through door-to-door visits rather than through a documentation-based process that had never been adopted in the past.
“Judges do not live in ivory towers. You too are aware of what is happening on the ground. The legacy media is largely compromised, but there are many independent platforms that are still speaking truth to power,” the letter said.
At the same time, the Opposition maintained that it was not questioning the judiciary.
“When all else fails, people still repose their trust in the judiciary. So when the judiciary fails to respond, it indicates a complete breakdown of the Republic,” the letter said.
