Elections in India have become a mammoth exercise and Lok Sabha polls a mega political event. The euphoria, the support of crowd, cheers for their leaders, hope and desperation to fight and win, doubt and uncertainty about the outcome, mark the mood of the marathon political race. In the run-up to the fight, candidates do everything to pull themselves up and push the opponent down. The added advantage of high-tech campaign has over the years made the elections more aggressive and sought after like IPL and world cup cricket.
When we talk of elections, there are some other possible phenomena like paid news, hate speeches, violence, black money, liquor, alliance or breakup, opinion polls and even conspiracies catch our imagination. These are the dark patches of our political system and the foul at play of the mega political event. The Election Commission is believed to be the umpire or the referee of this event and the onus of conducting free and fair polls lies on it. It becomes the responsibility of the Election Commission to monitor each and every activity of the political party and leader and is entitled to ensure that none of them violates the model code of conduct and those found to have violated the norms as prescribed by the Election Commission will be shown flag by the referee in accordance of the degree of misdeed. But why the umpires of the political field differ from the umpires on the ground and why the Election Commission looks for others to complain if it has to take action for any violation of election code or norm in most of the cases are the questions that haunt the mind.
Since 7 April, when the first polling took place, voting has been completed in 232 parliamentary constituencies and another 311 constituencies will go for polls in the next four weeks when the final voting will take place on 12 May. Till date, the Election Commission has served 368 notices to candidates for paid news and of which 198 cases of paid news have been confirmed. The number of confirmed paid news cases is 60 in Uttar Pradesh, 25 in Haryana, 23 in Karnataka, 14 in Orissa, 22 in Andhra Pradesh, 13 in Rajasthan, 4 in Maharashtra and six in Delhi.
In order to keep a vigil on the paid news cases, the Election Commission has for the first time placed Media Certification and Monitoring Committee in every district to curb the menace of paid news during elections. P Sainath, in his earlier article in The Hindu has rightly said, “The phenomenon of ‘paid news’ goes beyond the corruption of individual journalists and media companies. It has become pervasive, structured and highly organised and in the process, is undermining democracy in India.”(21 April, 2010)
As per figures available, 265 crores cash has been seized at various places in the country of which 103.39 crores, 70 kg of gold and 3,76,830 litres of illicit liquor seized in Andhra Pradesh alone. In another estimate, it is said that more than 10 million litres of liquor seized in the past 20 days. The amount seized so far in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls 2014 is 265 crore which is alarmingly higher than Rs 6.60 crore seized in 2009 general elections. The Election Commission had earlier issued an alert to banks asking them to inform whenever a candidate makes transaction of more than Rs 10 lakh but surprisingly not a single bank has informed the Election Commission. The Election Commission believes that parties might have pushed 100 crore before the moral code of conduct came into force. During the last assembly polls in Delhi, the flying squad of the Election Commission and Income Tax had seized Rs 27 crore.
Former Election Commissioner SY Quraishi, in an interview to DNA, recently said, “There are at least 40 such ways… Political parties play a cat and mouse game with the election commission.” Quraishi has also penned down these methods in his book, The Undocumented Wonder, The Making of the Great Indian Election, which is to be released shortly. Quraishi further said, “Every election season we hear about parties and candidates using innovative ways to distribute money and commodities to woo voters. I have tried to bring together 40 such ways that I witnessed during my tenure as the chief election commissioner.”
Now, hate speech or slanderous remark over the years has become a part and parcel of elections. More or less, all parties do so and they themselves know why they do it and what to do to get out of it. In the most vitiated and the polarised atmosphere in Uttar Pradesh following Muzaffarnagar riots, hate speeches in one way or the other have added fuel to the fire. Amit Shah, at an election rally in Uttar Pradesh said, “Yeh paschimi Uttar Pradesh ke samman ka sawal hai. Ab badla lene ka waqt aa gaya hai. Yeh Mughalkal nahi hai ki jahan talwaron, teeron se badla liya jata hai. 2014 ka chunaav samne hai, button dabkar app badla le sakte hain”.
Azam Khan, while reacting sharply on the statement made by Amit Shah said at an election rally, “The country has not to be given in the hands of a murderer… the murderers of Muzaffarnagar should be avenged by pressing the button,” The Election Commission on 11 April banned both of them from campaigning in the state.
Later on, after Amit Shah promised to behave, the Election Commission has lifted the ban on him. In his reaction Azam Khan told ET on 19 April that the EC has allowed a person like Amit Shah who has a criminal history and is accused of instigating massacre of Muslims in Gujarat to go scot-free while restraining me, a person like Shah who indulged in state-sponsored riots killing Muslims, so much so that the Supreme Court had to ban his entry into Gujarat. “The SC said that he is so dangerous that if he is allowed to roam in Gujarat, he will influence witnesses. The EC has lifted its ban orders against such a person but given no relief to me,” he rued. Much more, Imran Masood of Congress at a public rally in Saharanpur said, “If Modi tries to make Uttar Pradesh into Gujarat, then we will chop him into tiny pieces…I am not scared of getting killed or attacking someone. I will fight against Modi. He thinks UP is Gujarat. Only 4 per cent Muslims are there in Gujarat while there are 42 per cent Muslims in UP.”
Now many argue that most of the problems faced during elections could be at least minimised if the duration of election is reduced. Jawid Laiq, who has covered Lok Sabha polls since 1971, in his article “An election without end” in The Indian Express on 17 April has rightly pointed out that the current election is being held in nine phases, extending from April 7 to May 12, even longer than the last Lok Sabha election, which was held from April 16 to May 13, 2009. Earlier, the Indian state was fragile and its instruments of control were relatively weak. Yet elections were held within the timeframe of a week or two from 1962 to 1989. With phenomenal technological advances in modern communications and improvements in transport networks, our election machinery could now easily complete the entire process within a fortnight or less, if the spirit was willing. Indonesia, world’s third largest democracy after India and the United States, smoothly completed elections for its national and regional legislatures on April 9, a single day. Its previous elections, in April 2009, were also held on a single day. Geographically, Indonesia’s territory is far more daunting than India’s terrain.