Large scale violence during the recent local body polls in rural Punjab and West Bengal underline the gross inadequacy of election administration across the country. If the common person, let alone the opposition party worker or leader, is to be humiliated and intimidated by the ruling party, then the ideal of a free and fair poll remains a distant dream, especially in elections administered by state governments.

Admittedly, elections administered by the central Election Commission do fare better, with the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and the deployment of central paramilitary forces. But it is difficult to accept that even here the common voter, often illiterate or semi-literate, is completely protected from abuses propagated by politicians.

Part of the problem is that the powers of the Election Commission are poorly defined by a few short paragraphs in the Constitution of India, the Representation of the People Act 1950 and its subsequent updates, together with case law as determined from time to time.

State Election Commissions are invariably grossly under-resourced. They are entirely dependent on the state government itself respecting the letter and spirit of the rules governing elections to urban and rural institutions. With almost all the staff administering these elections being state government employees, it’s all too easy for them to subvert the process to please their political masters.

In my assembly constituency, we have recently had to endure absent returning officers, drunk officials, presiding officers fleeing with ballot boxes, widespread stuffing of ballot boxes, wholesale deletion of voters from electoral lists, spurious rejection of nominations, all of which confirm beyond doubt the overt and covert collusion of the ruling party and electoral officials. An exercise in democracy it was not.

... contd.