An allegation, substantial or not, is best neutralised by producing evidence to the contrary. It is thus surprising that the Election Commission of India chose to respond to Rahul Gandhi’s charge of irregularities in the poll process in the Mahadevapura segment of the Bangalore Central seat in the Lok Sabha elections with a tone of confrontation and defiance. Among other charges, the leader of the Opposition has claimed that an analysis of the EC’s data has revealed that over one lakh voters in the said constituency, which the Bharatiya Janata Party won, were fake. The analysis of the data, he added, took a long time on account of the apex poll body’s refusal to share with the Opposition data in the electronic form; paper electoral rolls, which cannot be machine read, were issued instead. The EC has, in turn, demanded that Mr Gandhi submit his statement on oath in an affidavit, a demand that some experts have said is infructuous under the circumstances. The EC’s refusal to share the data demanded by Mr Gandhi in public is strange. In fact, the august institution has a history of dispelling doubt so as to remain squeaky clean. For instance, in the fractious debate on electronic voting machines, the EC had demonstrated a nimbleness by holding public demonstrations to allay the concerns. Ironically, the EC’s refusal to be flexible on the current controversy has the potential of deepening the seeds of doubt. The electoral results in Maharashtra have already been brought under a cloud and there are signs that Mr Gandhi and the Congress plan to use the charge of vote theft to mobilise opinion against the alleged collusion of the EC with the BJP. But Mr Gandhi must ponder a few things. Having made a serious allegation, he must seek an institutional and fair probe into the matter. But so far at least, he has not demanded a judicial intervention. Moreover, making a sweeping claim about the theft of polls on the basis of alleged irregularities in one segment of one constituency can be deemed a bit rich.
Both the accuser and the defendant must bear one thing in mind. The issue at stake is much larger than their respective goals or respect. It concerns the legitimacy of an election — it does not matter whether it is in one constituency or more. A democracy turns on the purity of its electoral process. So it is imperative that polls remain sacrosanct. The best way of proving that Indian elections remain immune to mischief is by being transparent about relevant data. The onus is on the EC to offer a convincing rebuttal. That should take the sting out of Mr Gandhi’s allegations.