Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury rarely has anything positive to say about the Centre’s policy decisions. Like the other day, when he was critical of the haste with which two new election commissioners were appointed. He was part of the skewed collegium to select them and wrote a dissent note complaining he was shown the shortlist of candidates just 10 minutes before the committee met. Yet, Adhir welcomed the staggered seven-phase Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, hoping it would help create a level-playing field in the state, where goons of the ruling Trinamool Congress are known to terrorise voters. Party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, however, had a different take as he felt the elections spread over 44 days—the second longest in India’s history—would give PM Narendra Modi more time to stay on the campaign trail and benefit the BJP while bringing governance to a grinding halt.
On the sudden departure of his colleague Arun Goel, which necessitated the snap appointments, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar was dignified in his response. He described Goel as a distinguished colleague but said everyone should be given their personal space if they so desire. He spoke about the tradition of encouraging dissent within the EC, adding three minds are always better than one. He rounded it off with a Hindi couplet which meant, ‘always have people around who challenge your views’. As for J&K, there was clarity that assembly polls couldn’t be clubbed with the general elections as it would have required humongous deployment of security forces. Many more candidates enter the assembly poll fray than for the Lok Sabha, and each candidate has to be assigned at least two security personnel in J&K. In Manipur, displaced people would get to exercise their franchise in the special camps they live in.
The CEC claimed robust action would be taken against peddlers of fake news and hate speech. But, how even handed it would be in dealing with such instances across the board remains to be seen. The commission was found wanting in dealing with violations of the Model Code of Conduct in the 2019 general elections, which was why election commissioner Ashok Lavasa had submitted a dissent note. Would the CEC walk the talk of a bipartisan body with a few couplets thrown in between?