CM Abdullah said the reported differences raised serious questions and called for corrective action to protect public trust in elections and democracy. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday questioned the functioning of the Election Commission after a report said two Election Commissioners had repeatedly objected to decisions linked to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
CM Abdullah was responding to an Indian Express investigation that said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions and orders they said were issued without their knowledge. The reported objections concerned key parts of electoral roll management, including the addition and deletion of voters, changes to Form 6 and control over the voter database.
And if people’s faith in elections is lost, then why would people even participate in elections? “We have had persistent complaints about the way in which the Election Commission has functioned. Before SIR became an issue for the rest of the country, for us delimitation was an issue. We believed that the process was opaque; the process was flawed. “The foundation of democracy is elections. The Election Commission maintains that differences expressed during deliberations are part of its internal process and that its final decisions were unanimous. Opposition parties, meanwhile, have continued to question the SIR process and the removal of names from electoral rolls.
CM Abdullah said the report added to concerns that his party had raised earlier about the Election Commission’s functioning, including during the delimitation exercise in Jammu and Kashmir. And the entire process was designed to benefit one political party and its friends,” he said. He said the Election Commission’s response acknowledging that individual members could have different opinions raised further questions in his view. So I feel that the members of the Election Commission, the Election Commission and the Government of India need to think about this,” he said.
