India I’m against civil liberties Narendra Modi The crackdown on one of the last few independent institutions in the country viz Election Commission It is also taking over.
The agency, known in the past for conducting India’s most complex and multi-party elections fairly, is now being criticized by critics of Modi. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Seen as a support organization.
The downgrade was due to policy and personnel changes that the Modi government has been making over the years.
The latest attempt to curtail the commission’s independence was thwarted by the Supreme Court in March last year, ruling on a public interest petition to alter the process by which its three commissioners, including the chairman, are appointed.
Traditionally, appointments to these top posts were made by the President of India on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, but the court constituted a selection panel consisting of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India.
This was a temporary measure until Parliament could legislate for a permanent solution. Parliament followed the decision and enacted a law in December 2023.
But the new law served to further weaken the Election Commission. It removed the chief justice and made a federal minister nominated by the prime minister part of the panel, effectively giving the Modi government free rein to make appointments.
Professor Jagdeep S Chokurdi, founder member of the Association for Democratic Reforms, an election watchdog, told The Independent that ‘earlier when these officials were appointed, there was a semblance of independence in the process.
‘But this government started appointing people who were clearly connected to them or looked up to them.’
The new selection committee in its meeting last month appointed former bureaucrats Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sindhu as election commissioners to fill the quorum with chief commissioner Rajeev Kumar, who holds the post from 2022.
His appointment was immediately challenged but the Supreme Court refused to interfere.
The court also refused to stay the 2023 law that created the new selection panel.
Two days later on March 16, the Election Commission announced the national elections where Modi is seeking an extraordinary third term.
The elections will be held in seven phases from April 19 to June 1 and the counting of votes will take place on June 4.
Modi’s critics alleged that both Kumar and Sindhu were with the ruling BJP and would support it in the upcoming elections.
According to Frontline magazine, both the officials have supported the policies and initiatives of the BJP government.
Gyanesh Kumar played a key role in the reorganization of Jammu and Kashmir when the Modi government partitioned it into the Indian Union in 2019 and stripped the disputed region of its semi-autonomous status.
It was a move widely believed to be driven by the BJP’s Hindu nationalist ideology. Sindhu was elected to the Lokpal. is a government agency that acts as a corruption watchdog.
In this context, Chokur emphasizes the need for Election Commissioners to be accountable to the Constitution alone without interference from the ruling party.
He says that elections are a mechanism through which democracy works. There is a dire need for free and fair elections for the establishment of democracy. And for elections to be fair, those responsible for conducting the elections must be free from any possible interference or influence from the government of the day.
He further said that giving freedom to the ruling party to elect commissioners is a threat to free and fair elections.
According to him, if the prime minister or any senior minister is accused of violating the code of conduct, the Election Commission will be required to officially declare the violation.
This cannot happen if the commission becomes a supporter of the ruling party. The example of Ashoka Lavasa is instructive. Ashok, who was supposed to be the Chief Commissioner till April 2021, abruptly resigned in August 2020.
They had accused Modi of violating the code of conduct during the 2019 general elections, but the other two commissioners rejected it.
Ashok asked to record a dissenting note on the commission’s decisions on election violations but was again denied.
Shortly after his resignation, his mobile number appeared on a leaked list of potential targets of the Pegasus spyware and his family was targeted by investigative agencies.
The Economic Times reported in 2019 that the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had initiated proceedings against members of the Ashok family for alleged income tax evasion. IT notices were issued to his wife and son.
Political observers alleged that it was a revenge action against him.
When the new law for the appointment of election commissioners was presented in the parliament, the opposition lawmakers also raised their voice against it.
Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis Ittehad Muslimeen asserted that the law would question the impartiality of the commission.
He said: ‘If voters start to feel that this is not an impartial and neutral institution, the legitimacy of our democracy becomes questionable.’
He further said that legislation is being drafted to create an Election Commission that will work under the shadow of Prime Minister Modi.
The proposed law also faced criticism from outside the political establishment.
Legal expert Gautam Bhatia writes in the Times of India that ‘in constitutional democracies, election watchdogs belong to a set of institutions known as the fourth branch, which includes the Election Commission, Information Commission etc.
This section contains related reference points (Related Nodes field).
‘Their main task is to effectively monitor and enforce the infrastructure that is needed to make civil rights effective.
‘To achieve this goal, these fourth branch agencies must be effectively independent of the executive because one of their roles is to check executive overreach.’
Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary, who sat on the panel as Leader of Opposition, disagreed with the selection of new commissioners and submitted a dissenting note.
He said he had not received detailed information about the candidates or the preliminary shortlist before the meeting in March.
Chaudhry later told reporters that ‘I gave the dissenting note because I was given 212 names at midnight, but in the meeting, I saw only six names. How can I know about these people?’
“It is understood that the government can choose whomever it wants, but no procedure was followed.”
In an interview to news agency ANI, Modi claimed that his government has improved the Election Commission.
He has accused the Congress of appointing people close to the party as Election Commissioner.
He said that ‘Before this, the Prime Minister used to sign a file and form the Election Commission. And those who were close to that family became Election Commissioners. We have improved the Election Commission. Today, if the Election Commission is formed, the opposition is also included in it.
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), India moved to the 53rd position in the 2020 Democracy Index global ranking.
It said democratic backsliding by the authorities and a crackdown on civil liberties had led to further declines in the country’s ranking.
#Modi #government #independence #Election #Commission
2024-08-29 10:06:54
