ECI’s credibility under question: Former CEC Ashok Lavasa

Former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India, Ashok Lavasa, said that after the controversies over the alleged voter name deletions, the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) credibility is under question. Speaking at a public convention in Kolkata, Mr. Lavasa said that the voters in the country had never faced such mass anxiety before this. 

“I say with a lot of sadness and regret that the ECI has wrapped itself in so much controversy that people are on the road demanding the CEC’s resignation; India has never witnessed such a day. This is unfortunate in a democracy,” Mr. Lavasa said.  

Mr. Lavasa said that when such revisions happened before, people in the country did not have mass anxiety, and that it was caused by the unprecedented moves that were taken by the ECI, including the mass filing of Form 7 to delete voters, new questions in Form 6 without the government’s permission, or new categories like under adjudication, and others. 

The former CEC also added that the way the Supreme Court said that if a person does not get to vote in one election, it is not a major issue and that they can vote in the next election is shocking. “The institutions of India which were meant to protect the rights of Indians are adopting a very casual attitude towards these rights. This is deeply upsetting,” Mr. Lavasa added. He further shared hope that the ECI can regain its credibility in the coming days  

Several stakeholders of society, including former bureaucrats, politicians, educators, journalists, advocates, social activists, and many others, were present at the event and shared their insights on the rising controversy over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), ECI, and CEC Gyanesh Kumar. 

Actor and activist Prakash Raj, who also shared a video message at the convention, said that SIR is a dangerous disease that is being used to kill the country’s democracy. “They are trying to divide the country into two: people who can vote and people who cannot vote. Through this, they can have control, where elections are fixed, and there is no way out for the opposition to raise their heads,” Mr. Raj said.  

Former Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal, Jawhar Sircar, who was also part of the mass convention, said that the ECI has taken many unlawful decisions. “They need to be tried on criminal conspiracy charges, even if they do resign after the current movement,” Mr Sircar said. 

Former IAS officer Anita Agnihotri, who has also previously worked in voter roll revisions, said that the SIR process has been a human tragedy. “We were always told that voting is an important right of the people, and we took extra effort to include even the last person in the rolls so they could exercise their rights. Now it's reversed; all efforts are being made to see how people can be excluded,” Ms. Agnihotri said.