By Prof. H. Srikant (via Facebook) | Opinion
“Vote Chori” that Rahul Gandhi revealed today is something already known to many who have been following elections in India over the decades. The claim that citizens in India vote and elect their leaders is only partially true. There have always been manipulations in elections, albeit in different forms.
Earlier, party goons used crude methods such as booth capturing, physical threats to genuine voters, and fake voting. Later, administrative rigging emerged at local or state levels with the help of police officers and government officials, manipulating ballot boxes before the counting began. Congress and the Left Front were among the pioneers of this game.
Then came the electronic voting machines (EVMs). Doubts still persist that these machines could be calibrated so that, regardless of the button you press in the polling booth, the votes go in favor of a chosen political party.
What is new about Rahul’s revelations is the claim that rigging now takes place at the highest levels, with the collaboration of the Election Commission and the party in power. This, he alleges, happens primarily through manipulation of the voters list.
How is this manipulation carried out?
- By eliminating genuine voters from the list if they are suspected of not supporting the ruling party;
- Through impersonation – allowing others to vote in the name of genuine voters;
- By adding names of thousands of non-existent individuals to the voters list;
- By enabling election officials and ruling parties to conduct mass fake voting during the wee hours, particularly after 5 p.m.
By meticulously studying data in one of the constituencies in Karnataka, Rahul Gandhi showed that over one lakh excess votes were generated using five illegal methods:
- Duplicate voters – individuals voting in more than one polling booth with multiple voter ID cards;
- Fake voters with invalid or non-existent addresses;
- Bulk voters registered under a single address – e.g., 70 voters from one residence;
- Unidentifiable photos in the voter database;
- Fake names added as new voters.
It is obvious that this kind of manipulation cannot be carried out by an individual or a party alone, without the involvement of the Election Commission. Such manipulation ensures that, regardless of the voters’ actual preferences, any candidate can be elected by tampering with the voters list. Elections then become a facade, meant to fool the people. Democracy, in such a scenario, becomes a hoax. Can we do anything to save democracy?
(Editorial Note: Except for minor edits, the following text has been reproduced as it appeared in the newsfeed. Options are of the author’s alone.)
