- 3 hours ago
A high-stakes discussion on the Election Commission of India focuses on recent course corrections and controversies surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process. Former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa highlighted that rolling back decisions on Form 6, ECI net review, and Form 7 amounts to an admission of mistakes, stressing that accountability must be fixed. Lavasa noted, 'The principal issue now would not only be that so many crores of people were disenfranchised quite unfairly, but to fix the accountability on who took these decisions and why were these decisions taken.' Former Chief Election Commissioner Dr S.Y. Quraishi contended that unilateral decisions without multi-member consensus were illegal, arguing that the election process had been vitiated. In response, senior BJP leader and former Rajya Sabha MP GVL Narasimha Rao defended the SIR exercise, stating that voter list revisions were long overdue and aligned with standard democratic electoral cleanups globally.
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00:00Okay, so let's raise the big questions then on our talking point, linked to those stories.
00:06Course correction by the Election Commission, is it enough or too little, too late?
00:10Should accountability above all be fixed for the errors made?
00:14Should the Election Commission come clean on what's gone wrong?
00:19Has the time come for a joint presser of all the three Election Commissioners?
00:23Joining me now is former Chief Election Commissioner Dr. S.Y. Qureshi,
00:27former Election Commissioner Ashok Lawasa, and Senior BJP Leader and former Rajya Sabha MP GVL Narsimha Rao.
00:36Good to have all of you on the show.
00:37I want to come to you, Mr. Lawasa, first, because we have seen and you've described the EC's recent decisions
00:44as possible cost correction after the controversy surrounding SIR.
00:48It has, EC has changed the Form 6 procedures, ordered house-to-house consultations,
00:54initiated an ECI net review and resumed special summary revision, also re-looking at Form 7.
01:01Do you believe this is enough or do you believe accountability must be fixed for what has gone wrong?
01:09Thank you, Rajji.
01:10First of all, I think that the changes that have been made were inevitable
01:16if the ECI wanted to redeem themselves for the past mistakes.
01:22At the same time, I feel that it is an admission of the mistakes that they committed
01:30because the SIR was quite a botched-up process and quite unnecessary,
01:37given the fact that many of the decisions which were taken earlier are now being rolled back.
01:43But I think the principal issue now would not only be that so many crores of people
01:51were disenfranchised quite unfairly, but to fix the accountability on who took these decisions
01:59and why were these decisions taken.
02:02Because we know, leave aside all the allegations that opponents or other critics might have made,
02:10but one of the election commissioners himself called out the decisions and said they were illegal and unauthorised.
02:18So why were those decisions taken?
02:21And apart from the merit or demerit of those decisions,
02:26is also the question whether the ECI was functioning as a collective body
02:31or these were decisions taken by an individual unilaterally.
02:36So I think all these things have to be accounted for.
02:39So you're saying, let me summarise what you've said,
02:43you're saying it's not enough for cost corrections,
02:46those who are inevitable given the errors made,
02:49you're calling for something more, which is accountability being fixed.
02:52But who's going to fix that accountability?
02:54Who's going to fix the accountability, Mr. Lawasa?
02:57Because the Chief Election Commissioner is a constitutional body.
02:59Who's going to tell the CEC, Gyanesh Kumar Ji,
03:02you have heard you need to take accountability?
03:06Well, I think the fact that they have gone back on some of the decisions
03:11does mean that there is an ambition, as I said.
03:14So if they have, they should explain why those decisions were taken in the first place
03:20and what was the reason why they have been rolled back now.
03:23So it is not enough to admit a guilt, but equally in public life,
03:30I think it calls for fixing responsibility.
03:34And not only that, I think, Rajdeep, what we need to understand is that
03:39here is a case where millions of people were put to difficulty,
03:44where millions of people were actually deprived of their right to vote.
03:49And there was a case of mass anxiety.
03:53But quite apart from this, I would feel that in public life,
03:58whatever be the decision-making body, whether it is constitutional or statutory,
04:04ultimately, I think we are all spending public money.
04:08And if crores of rupees have been spent on an ill-conceived exercise,
04:13the outcome of which has to be assessed in terms of the objectives that were set out.
04:20So I think it does call for an independent evaluation of what the EC wanted to achieve,
04:27whether it has been able to achieve that.
04:29And if so much money has been spent, public money, without any purpose,
04:35surely that it is a case for identifying the person who is responsible for this.
04:40I am just going to push you one more time before I go.
04:43Who is going to do this?
04:44Are you calling for an independent audit of the Election Commission's decisions?
04:48Are you saying the President of India, to whom the Election Commission at the end of the day
04:52is accountable for, has to order this?
04:55Who is going to do it?
04:56The Cabinet Secretary, as we have seen today in the RTI, has already washed his hands.
05:00When the two other Election Commissioners went there and questioned
05:03some of the decisions taken by Gyanesh Kumar,
05:05the Cabinet Secretary said, we don't want to intervene,
05:08that the Election Commission is independent.
05:10I'll ask you again a quick answer.
05:11Who will be, who will ensure accountability?
05:16Rajdeep, I think it's a very good question.
05:19And here is a case of a huge challenge to the system.
05:23Because there are many institutions which are responsible to take those decisions,
05:29whether it is the Supreme Court, or it is the Parliament, or it is the individual himself.
05:36I think the ball squarely lies in their court.
05:39And I would feel that it is a challenge to the entire system as to who will break this stalemate.
05:48You know, I'll come back to you, circle back to you in a moment to maybe push you even further.
05:54But Dr. Qureshi, you've gone a step further than even Mr. Lavasa.
05:58I saw a recent interview where you're actually saying the decisions were not just errors,
06:02they were malefied.
06:04And when you said malefied, you even went to the extent of saying the West Bengal elections,
06:08for example, results should be annulled and fresh elections held.
06:11Now, that's taking a very, many will say, a very extreme position.
06:14But as Ashok Lavasa there is saying, accountability, he believes, needs to be fixed.
06:19Yes, the EC has made certain cost corrections, but that's not enough.
06:22He claims, he says, accountability must be fixed.
06:25You've said the decisions are malefied.
06:27So, they must be all reversed.
06:29Yes, I entirely agree with every word of what Mr. Lavasa said.
06:34And I would like to add that, obviously, if the actions have been illegal,
06:38the decisions were being taken by one individual.
06:41And I have written with a headline in the newspaper, Indian Express,
06:45the Chief Election Commissioner is not the Election Commission.
06:49It is the majority of the three which is the Election Commission.
06:52So, if he was taking a unilateral decision, there were no decisions of the Election Commission,
06:56and therefore, they're illegal.
06:58And anything illegal has to be undone.
07:01Already, they have mercifully, some rollback has started.
07:04But it is still halfway, still much left to be desired.
07:11The election should be annulled because the West Bengal elections were totally evitiated and has been proved by the subsequent
07:24development.
07:25And the fact that the Election Commission itself has started rolling back without saying so.
07:30Instead of saying that we are cancelling all that, they're still trying to be too clever by half.
07:35You know, now, the same electoral roll of January 2025, which they threw into a trash can.
07:43It's useless, useless.
07:44We will do it afresh.
07:46Now, they say, okay, please fish out those 2025 rolls and see if anybody has been deleted from there.
07:53Bring them back.
07:54Now, this is half the story.
07:56Bring them back.
07:56Fine.
07:57Very good.
07:57Thank you very much.
07:58But second, bring them back through Form 6, which, as I have pointed out through a tweet, is illegal.
08:05You can create another Form 6.
08:07I said, Form 6X.
08:09Create another.
08:10Don't commit the same illegality.
08:11Because you are saying Form 6 is for…
08:13You have said that Form 6 is for new voters.
08:15So, if you hand over Form 6 to a voter who has already been rejected, it's prima facie and illegality.
08:22Am I correct?
08:23Absolutely.
08:24And, in fact, it has a serious implication with the kind of credibility which these guys have earned.
08:29Now, they force you to sign on a new applicant form, Rajdeep Sajdrasai.
08:36I have never been enrolled anywhere else.
08:38And if I lie, I'm liable to a one-year imprisonment.
08:41That is Form 6.
08:42And they are forcing people to sign this Form 6.
08:46And in the next step, what they would have done, the way they were carrying on, that they will launch
08:51a big movement of putting all these people who formed Form 6 falsely into jail.
09:00Fortunately, abutment of crime is also equal offense.
09:03The people who are forcing…
09:05But they were denied.
09:06I never forced Rajdeep to sign it.
09:08He himself did it.
09:09No, no, but where does the blame lie?
09:13If all these decisions are now being reversed, rolled back, course corrected, does the blame lie only on Gyanesh Kumar's
09:20door or all three?
09:21Because the three election commissioners in their press release have said decisions were unanimous.
09:25So, today we are saying that…
09:27No, I want clarity.
09:29The fact is, do we only put the accountability to be fixed at Gyanesh Kumar's door or all three election
09:34commissioners will have to answer?
09:36Should they have a joint press conference?
09:38Yes, certainly.
09:39I have been asking for a joint press conference for sure.
09:43Primarily, it is a responsibility of the CEC.
09:45The other two also, it is easy to expect that they should have been out in the open and they
09:50should have been protesting.
09:51But the very fact that you and I are discussing this issue, because they were creating evidence.
09:56They wrote objections 14 times in 10 months.
10:00That is what brought out the illegality of the whole thing.
10:03Therefore, instead of blaming them, that is a diversion.
10:06We can do their postmortem three months later.
10:08But at the moment, the guy who did it, singly ignoring the other two, which is what their protest is
10:16about, has to be held accountable.
10:19Because he put India into anarchy.
10:22That is the biggest anarchy which has happened.
10:24You know, but the question is whether the other two then should have raised a red flag in other ways,
10:28other than just writing to the cabinet secretary, who has already put his hands up and says,
10:32I don't want to intervene in this.
10:34But I want to bring in GBL Narasimha Rao.
10:36You are hearing very strong words.
10:37Dr. Qureshi has gone to the extent of saying, cancel the West Bengal election.
10:41This is malified what happened in 25-26.
10:44Ashok Lavasa is saying, accountability has to be fixed.
10:48You were smiling right through.
10:49As a politician, sophologist, do you believe that now the questions are getting more and more serious?
10:55The very fact, all these rollbacks are taking place as an effective admission that things were going wrong.
11:01Razdeep, good evening to you and both the former Chief Election Commissioners.
11:08I'm actually, I won't speak as a politician today.
11:11I'm not here only to speak on the political lines.
11:14But Dr. Qureshi said he agrees with every word spoken by Mr. Lavasa.
11:19And I disagree with every word spoken by all three of you.
11:24And I'll tell you why.
11:26Every word spoken by Mr. Lavasa, Dr. Qureshi, and some observations made by you as well, Razdeep.
11:32I think this SIR is a long overdue exercise.
11:37It's very unfortunate that this country has not had an intensive, specially intensive revision for nearly two decades plus, for
11:4622 years.
11:47Honestly, I think that is a crime.
11:49Because world over, these intensive revisions happen on a periodic basis.
11:54In the U.S., for instance, this was held in 22, between 2020 and 22.
12:01In India, we have special summary revisions every year.
12:04In India, are you saying all these special summary revisions were of no use?
12:08I will share a copy of this report to you.
12:11This is a voter list maintenance activity by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
12:18And they carry out, almost after every two cycles of presidential elections, this is carried out on a nationwide basis.
12:27And between 2016 and 2022 cycle, in a span of six years, let me give you the number of 9
12:37% of voters.
12:3920 million voters in U.S. were purged from the voter list.
12:4420 million.
12:45And that comes to about 9.5%.
12:47Let me complete.
12:49And here you have 22 years this has not been done.
12:52And I would like to understand why it has taken such a long time.
12:56No, no, but GVL, no one is...
12:58No, no, GVL, there will be those who will say it's not about SIR.
13:01It's the way it's been executed.
13:03You see, nobody...
13:03It's not about SIR.
13:05It's the way it's been executed.
13:06No, no, I am placing, I am countering arguments against three of you.
13:10Please allow me time, then you can...
13:11No, no, not me.
13:12Don't get me involved.
13:13Okay.
13:14Against the two former commissioners, even they are speaking from experience.
13:18But I want to quote experience.
13:20As I told you, this is U.S. experience.
13:22And in the previous six-year cycle, it was even more than this.
13:26So, on an average, every six years, nearly 10% of U.S. voters get deleted, purged from voter lists.
13:35Here we have India, where it has taken 22 long years, 24 years, for us to complete this exercise.
13:42So, there is no wonder that the deletions are to the tune of 13%, 14%.
13:47I'm not saying that there may not be eligible voters who got deleted.
13:50But that is...
13:51But statistically speaking, I am an election expert.
13:54I have closely watched elections.
13:56And I'm speaking from that experience.
13:58And I quote you from another U.K. parliamentary committee.
14:02This is a U.K. parliamentary committee, which recently said 8 million voters...
14:08All these are public documents.
14:10You can quickly Google and you will get some of them.
14:138 million voters are likely to get disenfranchised because of the voter reform measures being taken by the U.K.
14:23Electoral Commission.
14:24They are the equivalent of an election commission of India in the U.K.
14:27They are saying, the members of parliament across political parties are saying,
14:31if you implement this reform, 8 million people will lose.
14:35So, these are...
14:36I think there are reform measures being taken all over the world.
14:40I am not speaking for this election commission or one officer, one chief election commissioner.
14:46But I think this is a long overdue cleaning plan, purging exercise that was required.
14:53Sir, are we confusing issues between an SIR taking place and the way it was done?
14:58It is the way it was done.
15:01No, no.
15:01Let me tell you the need for the exercise, first of all.
15:04Because there are a lot of people who don't know why SIR is required.
15:08Let me give you another statistic.
15:09In 2014, the number of registered voters in India was 2 crores more than the population, 18-plus age population,
15:20as per census data.
15:22How can you have more?
15:23Because census actually only counts number of usual citizens.
15:28It doesn't even count citizens, usual residents.
15:31And in India, in 2014, you had 23.4 crore registered voters, 834 million, whereas their population could not have
15:43been more than 810 million.
15:45So, where did these 2 extra crore...
15:47So, this is because...
15:49This is...
15:49One second.
15:50Let me complete, Razeeb, because this is a perspective that should go across to your people, the viewers.
15:54So, number one, there was a massive need for doing a voter purge based on verifiable ground-level indicator.
16:04And here, you have done this for the first time you have in the special revision, people going door-to
16:10-door.
16:10Several visits were made.
16:12So, therefore, if some voters got deleted despite this, they now have an opportunity to get enrolled.
16:17But to say it was done with a malafide intent, to say this was done to benefit a political party,
16:24that is where you are getting into politics.
16:26And people of the country, let me tell you, repeatedly, I've heard views that people have lost confidence.
16:32No, sir.
16:33It is as people have as much trust in the Election Commission of India today, as much trust in the
16:39outcome of elections, as when you helped it.
16:41Or before it, Election Commission of...
16:44Because otherwise, you would have seen a different public response.
16:46A few people coming onto the streets doesn't make a national voice.
16:51I'm not going into the politics.
16:53Dr. Qureshi, you want to respond, though?
16:55Here is JVL Narsimha Rao saying this was much needed, and this was a cleanup that was waiting over years
17:01to happen.
17:03Very fine.
17:04You know, I'm a great admirer of JVL Narsimha Rao.
17:08He's a thorough gentleman and very erudite.
17:10But with a due apology, you wasted six minutes of this program time discussing U.S. and U.K., which
17:17was irrelevant.
17:18Talk of India.
17:19Why is some reversal taking place?
17:22Who is taking back the orders of the last one and a half years?
17:25Election Commission itself.
17:26So let us focus on that.
17:28Why do they have to take it back?
17:30Let us examine that.
17:31And the fact that the other two gentlemen have been raising exactly those kind of issues,
17:37till today, let us demand that we want to know what were those 14 issues on which they wrote protest
17:43note,
17:43which was revealed by the newspaper.
17:46We would like to know exactly what was happening inside.
17:49The other two gentlemen themselves were fighting this hassle.
17:51Are you saying all of this has to become a paper trail?
17:53Are you saying there needs to be a paper trail made public, Dr. Qureshi?
17:58Absolutely.
17:58It's such a national issue, such a national crisis, national anarchy, and we must know what happened.
18:06It's such a way.
18:07Those 14 objections of the 10 months are absolutely essential for us to know.
18:15Mr. Lawasa, you know, JVL Narsimha Rao is saying both of you, both the election commissioners on my panel are
18:21giving a political viewpoint.
18:22He says this was much needed and therefore should be seen in that context as a cleanup of the roles.
18:29Yeah, Radeep, I don't think that we are, at least nobody is bringing politics in this.
18:36The point is quite straightforward.
18:39There are two dimensions to the entire issue.
18:43One is the controversy surrounding the manner in which SIR is being done and whether the election commission should have
18:52done SIR or not.
18:54I think those are controversies and much can be said on both sides.
18:59But I think here we are also dealing with the issue of certain alleged illegalities.
19:05And in the case of Form 6, I don't think it is any longer an alleged illegality because we know
19:13that Form 6 has been changed.
19:15We know that election commissioners admitted that they did change the form.
19:20We also know that they attributed it to the Supreme Court upholding the changes in Form 6.
19:26So, when you commit illegalities, which are alleged no lesser than the election commissioners themselves, I think it's a very
19:37serious matter.
19:38And I don't know whether there is a history of the Supreme Court being asked to adjudicate upon the legality
19:48of a decision which has been taken by the election commission.
19:52And mind you, here we are also looking at a case where the election commissioners are saying that for a
19:59year, no minutes have been drawn.
20:02So, if no minutes have been drawn, how do you know whether the decisions were taken by unanimity or by
20:09a majority?
20:10So, those are the issues which call for accountability.
20:14You know, therefore, JBL, in conclusion, the fact is all these changes that the election commission is now making, Form
20:206 procedures, suddenly house-to-house consultations being accepted, ECI net review, resumed special summary revision, all of them suggest
20:28that the election commission is effectively admitting we got it wrong.
20:32Then there would be no rollback, rollback after rollback, even Form 7 is being rolled back, the number of people
20:37who can file objections for deletion.
20:39Something has gone wrong.
20:40You see, we have to make the distinction between having an SIR and the way it was executed.
20:47No, Rajdeep, so first I established there was a need for a long overdue SIR.
20:52Now, the so-called objection…
20:53No, that's your view.
20:54That's a debatable question.
20:55That's a debatable question, but that's your view.
20:57I'll take your view.
20:58No, if you think 22 years doesn't require a special revision, then I think people will make a decision on
21:05this.
21:05The world needs it, does it more frequently.
21:08We should do it at least every six years, every seven years, after two parliamentary elections.
21:14That's my view.
21:14I would make this a humble suggestion to the election commission, actually.
21:19Don't do it after 20 years.
21:20You will end up with this kind of public criticism.
21:24But here, this is the press note of the election commission of India.
21:27So, both our honourable former commissioners mentioned that two of them disagreed with the SIR process and repeated statements from
21:37the election commission of India, say all decisions were made unanimously.
21:42So, why don't they come before the public?
21:45Why don't they even have a press conference together?
21:47Let them have a press conference.
21:48Why did they write to the cabinet?
21:49If all decisions were unanimous, why did they write to the cabinet, secondly?
21:53As somebody who has actually interacted with the election commission of India for many years, when Honourable Khureshi, Dr. Khureshi
22:01was a CEC, I was a bit of a critic on some issues.
22:05And I know every institution has a certain style of functioning.
22:09They disagreed with everything that we said.
22:11But let me tell you, they carried out several reforms after we talked about them.
22:17They carried out because there is always a scope for improvement.
22:21There is always a commission of election commission of India and every institution must be open to ideas, suggestions, criticism
22:29must be open to them and constantly improve.
22:33This is not to deny the need for SIR, but certainly whether there is an illegality or not, it's for
22:38the election Supreme Court to decide.
22:40And that they are the ultimate authority.
22:42I wondered whether the Supreme Court has the oversight, certainly over Parliament, over Election Commission of India and every other
22:51constitutional body.
22:52As far as matters of legality are concerned, Supreme Court is the final authority.
22:58So let's wait for their wedding.
22:59Okay, we'll wait for that.
23:01I mean, I'm willing to wait for that.
23:02But I think there are important issues of accountability which really have been raised.
23:07And I think we need to face them.
23:09Constitutional bodies are not above the law.
23:12Let's be very clear about that.
23:14But I appreciate my guests joining me on my show tonight.
23:18Thank you all very much.
23:24Okay, from that fascinating debate on the Election Commission and accountability.
23:28We will.