EC’s New Guidelines
An Uneven Game
In another fortnight, the
world’s largest democracy goes to the polls. The President and the Chief
Election Commissioner have called upon all political parties not to give tickets
to criminals. For the people their message was to vote freely and without fear.
Notwithstanding their appeals, it is probably a forgone conclusion that the
coming elections will be no less bloody and unfair.
For a revolutionary left party like CPI(ML), participating in elections has
been an expensive exercise paid with the blood of many of our sympathisers and
activists. In many constituencies specially where we poll sizable votes or are
in contention with the mainstream parties for the top spot, violent attacks
on our poll meetings, selective killings of leaders, activists and even candidates,
and terrorising of our mass bases, has been our common experience. We have seen
that the gross flouting of all democratic norms and election rules has been
a rule rather than an exception for bourgeois parties of all hues. Booth capturing
for them is now an unavoidable tool to ensure victory in the polls. All these
make elections a grim battle and definitely unequal for revolutionary left forces.
If one farce of bourgeois democracy is that as a rule ruling parties openly
violate the rules, the other is that they have framed unequal rules to work
in their favour. From the time of TN Seshan, in the name of electoral reforms,
election rules have been amended in favour of the ruling class parties who generally
come under the Election Commission’s category of registered recognised
parties. There can be no objection to the Election Commission’s proclaimed
orientation of the reforms i.e. discouraging non-serious individuals and registered
parties from the poll fray. However, the rules framed by the EC instead go against
many serious individuals and registered parties.
You Only Live Once!
In every election we are faced with threats to the lives of our candidates.
In these elections this problem has become more manifest with the EC’s
amendment that in the case of death of an individual candidate or of a candidate
from a registered non-recognised party after filing of nominations, the elections
won’t be countermanded. In spite of a large mass base we still don’t
satisfy the EC’s criterion for a recognised party. In such a given condition,
if our candidate is murdered, the election process will continue and the party
itself will be denied the right to further contest in the polls from that constituency.
While for the recognised parties, in case of death of any of its candidates,
the party’s right to contest and field another candidate has been reserved,
as was the earlier rule. In the case of an individual candidate such an amendment
is understandable as an individual candidate cannot be represented by others
after his or her demise and hence there is no deprivation of the candidate’s
fundamental rights.
Such a clause will only legitimise and may even provoke killing of our candidates
in many of the constituencies where we provide a stiff challenge to the mainstream
parties. Many of our Party’s prospective candidates were eliminated by
the ruling parties to ensure their victories in the next polls. In all these
killings mafia goons, feudal goons, landlords’ private armies and anarchist
militant gangs were used. In Siwan, among the many of our activists killed by
the notorious RJD MP, Shahabuddin and his gang, some were CPI(ML) candidates
for the parliamentary and assembly seats. The assassination of Chandrashekhar
was masterminded by Shahabuddin to nip in the bud a prospective CPI(ML) candidate
who was becoming increasingly popular. The amended rule will now work in favour
of candidates like Shahabuddin who can get our candidate killed to clear his
field during the polls without the fear of countermanding of elections. In fact,
in the constituencies where we had polled between 1-1.5 lakh votes like Arrah,
Jehanabad and Siwan and other strong constituencies like Bikramganj, Buxar,
Koderma, Gopalganj our candidates have already been threatened. Most of our
leaders are already on the hit-lists of the armed gangs owing allegiance to
the BJP and the RJD.
This rule was initially brought out for the states of Jammu and Kashmir and
Punjab where candidates were killed by terrorists to disrupt the election process
and enforce the call to boycott elections. In such cases this rule smay have
served its purpose. But in rest of India candidates are killed with the specific
objective of weeding out opponents to improve chances of winning the elections.
In the case of UP and Bihar, where elections are generally fought through guns,
this threat posed to our candidates by this new rule is real. On the other hand,
the possibility of threat to the lives of candidates put up by recognised political
parties has always been found to be rare.
Symbol Scam
In yet another ruling the EC has clearly shown its bias for the ruling class
parties. According to the earlier rule, the election symbol of a nationally
recognised party was reserved for it all over the country, for a state recognised
party it was reserved for the state in which it was recognised and all independents
and non-recognised parties would have to select their symbol from a set of free
symbols. That meant that within one state, or even in adjoining constituencies,
any non-recognised party might end up with two different symbols.
The amendment this time extends the privilege of nationally reserved symbols
to state recognised parties too, even if these parties do not contest in many
other states. This has further restricted the scope for non-recognised parties
to get a common symbol out of the free symbol list. The choice for many well
identified symbols which are being used by the state recognised parties, will
be restricted. For example, CPI(ML) had been contesting with the ladder symbol
— chosen in each of the contested constituency from the list of free symbols
— in the last few elections. But now the symbol has been reserved for IUML
of Kerala, a state recognised party fighting on the same symbol in the past.
While IUML does not field a candidate outside Kerala, CPI(ML) has fielded candidates
in 11 states. But with this amendment, CPI(ML) will be denied the use of this
symbol with which it is identified by the people of its constituencies.
It would also mean that such a party for each constituency will be allotted
a free symbol only at the beginning of the campaign period which is about two
weeks before the day of polling. Thus the campaign period will be effectively
reduced as campaign materials cannot be produced earlier. But for the recognised
parties, whose symbols are reserved from before and the masses too know the
symbols, campaign can effectively start much before.
The EC dragnet designed to discourage serious non-recognised parties would still
have to fend for the numerous small parties that are formed from splits from
the larger political groups. Thus, Laloo’s RJD and Mamata’s TMC were
given common symbols under another amendment that parties formed by splitting
off from recognised parties would be allotted reserved symbols. By that specious
logic then, even if a party was formed only a week before the polls after a
split from a recognised party and even if the party failed to become a recognised
party by the EC’s criterion, it would still get a reserved symbol while
non-recognised parties struggling for a much longer time in the electoral arena
would not. Even then, some other parties which couldn’t clear any of these
criterions but were some way or the other associated with the ruling establishment
(Hegde’s Lok Shakti and PMK which was derecognised based on its last poll
performance) were obliged by the EC with a reserved symbol under special considerations
on a selective basis for which it is not questionable, while all our appeals
to the EC for a common symbol fell on deaf ears.
Redrawing the Lines
Similarly, various other discriminatory clauses have been introduced. Recognised
groups require only 2 proposers while non-recognised groups need 10. For a serious
political party with a mass base there is absolutely no problem in furnishing
even 100 proposers but then why this distinction? Recognised groups are provided
with free voters list even for constituencies where they are not contesting
while others have to purchase them at an exorbitant price. Access to government
controlled media for propaganda purposes has been denied. None of the non-recognised
parties are invited to attend EC’s meetings with political parties where
new rules are decided. In effect EC’s rules are only imposed on non-recognised
parties while for other parties it is a matter of mutual consent. This is followed
even down to the district level.
Many of these district level EC meetings are crucial in deciding on the polling
booths. While the constitution talks about protecting the rights of the socially
weaker sections yet this fact is hardly taken into account while forming polling
booths. It is common in the Indian countryside that socially weaker sections,
dalits, minorities etc. often have separate villages or hamlets due to prevailing
tensions with dominant castes. Creating common booths in such places, discourages
these people from casting their vote freely due to fear of the rural elite backed
by criminal gangs. In many places, even in the absence of sharp caste tensions,
social taboos prohibit the lower castes to stand side by side with upper castes
in casting their votes. Hence, it is not surprising that voting percentages
of these sections in every election are generally abysmally low in many parts
of the country. While there can be no disagreement with the spirit of the EC
that it would make no distinction on the basis of caste, class, sex etc. but
it is only by creating separate booths for the weaker sections that one can
provide scope for such people to exercise their right to vote. With a major
section of our mass base belonging to these sections this factor plays a very
crucial role in the poll outcome.
A multiparty bourgeois democracy can only survive if parties are given equal
opportunities to fight it out among themselves in the elections. However, the
Indian variety of multiparty democracy is fast being transformed into an exclusive
territory for parties of the establishment while smaller, weaker and younger
parties representing the weaker sections of society are being sought to be fenced
off by all means.