‘Politicalpartiesfind EVM an easy target’

As it prepares for the elections in five states and the 2019 general election, the Election Commission (EC) is focusing on three major areas — abuse of money in polling, fake and paid news, and the concerns of political parties as they crop up — says chief election commissioner OP Rawat. In an interview to

Smriti Kak Ramachandran,

Rawat cites data manipulation by technological firms as the biggest challenge for the poll panel, apart from speaking about EVMS, simultaneous elections, and charges of bias levelled against the commission.

The audit inspection of candidates and maintenance of shadow expenditure register is also being looked into vigorously. The commission has asked expenditure-observing teams to ensure that their training is up to the mark and their assessment is accurate. That is what we have been asking for. In case there is rampant money distribution, EC should be given the legal powers to countermand polls, like there is a provision in law for booth capturing. We have reviewed this decision and how we plan to go about it will be in public domain soon. We had suggested this reform and will continue to review the progress on this issue. Beyond this, I don’t think there is any need to do more. These are areas which are mostly in the political domain and they are best judge as to whether these should be done.

Earlier, it was many seats (candidates could contest from several seats), they have brought it down to two seats. So, they are reforming. because of very strict surveillance and checks, money is manifesting in many innovative and different ways in elections. Therefore, we will have to think in terms of augmenting the jurisdiction of the election commission because our jurisdictions starts after the announcement of polls and continues till the results are announced. It is a short period.

We have seen that everything starts much earlier now. When they know elections are only four to five months ahead, things start moving -- cash is moved to vantage positions and people are tasked to distribute it to prospective voters who are ready to jump on the bandwagon. We have to think on the lines of how to stop that.

Secondly, instead of the direct bribing of voters, it is now moving to technology and big data firms and services such as targeted communication on social media, and analysis on where to focus so as to tilt the voting behaviour in a party’s favour. All these sophisticated techniques, which may cost a bomb, are being resorted to. From directly being given to the voters, money is now being given into the hands of these firms who are trying to manipulate the margins to change the election outcomes in favour of the client.

Since the Election Commission does not have any wherewithal to monitor all this effectively and nail them, we have to depend on complaints. Even the electorate or other political parties don’t have the capability to find out such manifestations and raise a complaint. So that is one area of worry where we will have to do a lot of brainstorming and come up with some imaginative steps. platforms and got their cooperation during the campaign period. They have agreed to take down the campaigning material.

There are many things we need to watch out for. If you read the progress of investigations in elections that have been allegedly manipulated abroad, its an eye-opener; what cannot be done is just not visible. We are taking all possible steps to prevent any adverse impact on our elections. I was reading a book ‘How Democracies Die’. The authors (Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt) have written that when parties start accusing institutions and technologies for their fate at the hustings, that is the point which should worry all stakeholders. As far as the EC is concerned, it takes such criticism in its stride because being a referee of a match where if you lose, you are in the dumps, we have to be there like a punching bag. We have to bear it. challenges, the man-machine interface will fail, some or the other function will fail; but we will keep learning and improving. Initially, the EVMS were failing in large numbers, but after 20 years, the failure rate is 0.7%. After polling personnel reach a higher level on the learning curve, things will improve. Political parties find these machines easy targets. State funding in the present scenario will not improve anything. Funds from all sides can still vitiate the atmosphere.

And state funds might be a minuscule part of it, and you may be just trying to divert a torrent by holding a fig leaf in your hand. It will look like a foolish exercise. Unless we come up with a solid framework to stop the abuse of money in the political process, we should not be thinking in terms of state funding. code of conduct will not be in place. Whatever is put in the public domain is a subjective impression of things.

For example, since Lok Sabha goes to polls with four other states, we need about 2 million EVMS for one million polling stations. If we go for simultaneous polls, we will need nearly 3.3 million EVMS and VVPATS; and these will be used once in five years. The lifespan of these machines is just 15 years; so in case of simultaneous polls. these machines will be used for three elections as compared to sixseven times. The maintenance cost will be higher, because of a larger number of machines will be required to be held. The mortality of these machines will be higher, because the chances of an electronic machine not in use, developing snags are higher.

All those factors have to be studied. One can say the deployment of polling parties and forces will be only once, with more numbers, so there might be a saving there. Campaigning by polling parties will be reduced, their expenditure is likely to come down; but one cannot be sure because they might spend more since there is no ceiling. Hypothetically speaking, they might say since the election is only once in five years, let us spend more.

As far as the federal structure is concerned, there might be no effect. We were having simultaneous elections till 1967. Our democracy has come of age and our voter has shown that they can’t be taken for granted.