बेबाक · Editorial
When the Election Commission Disciplines Its Own, Voters Deserve to See the Reasons
Suspensions over Uttar Pradesh council poll lapses show the poll body can police its machinery. The same openness must now extend to the rolls before the Supreme Court.
The referee blows the whistle
The Election Commission of India has suspended six officials over lapses in the Agra Legislative Council election. In a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer, Uttar Pradesh, the Commission said the six would face charge sheets and that another 21 polling officials would face disciplinary proceedings. It also removed IAS officer Abhay from his role as observer for the biennial election to the Gorakhpur-Faizabad Division Teachers' Constituency. This deserves acknowledgement. A poll body that acts against its own machinery, rather than closing ranks, strengthens the one institution every Indian must be able to trust. But accountability is fully credible only when the public can see what went wrong, not merely who was punished.
The rolls under scrutiny
The larger test lies elsewhere. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant is scheduled to hear petitions against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and against decisions the Commission took during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The Commission has defended the exercise before the Supreme Court and says Form 6 has not been changed. Separately, local office-bearers of several political parties walked out of a meeting on the special summary revision (SSR) of rolls. The substance of the objections remains contested, and the public record so far is thin. That is why the Supreme Court's hearing matters. It, not the din of the streets, is the proper place to settle what the revision did and did not do.
Both cases, fairly stated
The Commission's case is serious. It is a constitutional body charged with keeping rolls accurate. Revising them is its duty, not a favour. If litigation and boycotts can stall that work, every revision becomes a hostage to whichever side expects to lose. The petitioners' case is equally serious. A revision that is opaque in method can strike eligible names as easily as ineligible ones. The citizens least able to contest a deletion are the poor, the migrant and the unlettered. When parties of differing persuasions walk out together, they signal a trust deficit the Commission cannot dismiss as mere politics. Both concerns can be legitimate at once, and an honest reading must hold both.
Where the weight falls
The two threads point to one conclusion. The Uttar Pradesh suspensions show that the Commission can identify failure and act on it. That same capacity should govern the rolls, where the stakes are higher and errors are harder to repair. A lapse at a polling station can be investigated after the count. A voter wrongly removed from the roll has lost the franchise before the count begins, and no later charge sheet restores it. The Commission's strongest defence, in court and before the public, is not assertion but disclosure. If Form 6 is unchanged and the revision is sound, the evidence will show it. Institutions that are confident of their record should welcome the scrutiny.
A practical way forward
Three steps would serve the citizen, whichever way the case is decided. First, once due process for the accused officials is complete, the Commission should publish the findings behind the Agra suspensions, so that other States learn from the failure rather than merely hear of the penalty. Second, for every roll revision, it should publish constituency-wise counts of additions and deletions with reasons. Every deleted elector should receive notice and a fair window to object. Third, meetings with political representatives on roll revision should have published minutes, so that a walkout becomes a recorded objection that can be examined, not just a news photograph. The Supreme Court should hear the matter promptly, and every side should accept what it finds.
A suspension is a verdict on an official; a published finding is a lesson for the system. The republic needs both.
What this editorial rests on
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An editorial is the considered opinion of the Aad Tak desk, argued from the sourced reporting above and written under our published persona, बेबाक. We name institutions, not parties. If we are wrong, we will say so. How we work →