Does ECI take poll malpractices seriously?

With polling in Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana completed as of yesterday, the people’s mandate only remains to be ascertained on counting day. Strangely, at the time of writing this piece, neither the Election Commission of India (ECI) nor the respective Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) had published information about the seizure of materials intended for ‘bribing’ voters, such as cash, liquor, narcotics, jewellery, etc.

All such inducements amount to corrupt electoral practices, which become sufficient cause for imprisoning and/or imposing fines on the guilty -- be it candidates or their supporters. But even if such data were to be published, how reliable would it be?

Readers might be familiar with my efforts to unearth crucial electoral information which neither the ECI nor the CEOs willingly disclose. For example, the CEOs are required to identify and report to the ECI- ‘expenditure sensitive’ Lok Sabha/Vidhan Sabha constituencies and sensitive pockets within them.

The ECI appoints hundreds of Indian Revenue Service officers as Expenditure Observers to work in tandem with the election authorities and local agencies constituting flying squads, state surveillance teams, police and excise authorities, to curb the influence of money power. These observers send at least four reports during the campaign period about the electoral spending they have noticed, in addition to the daily seizure reports, which the field level agencies submit in specific proformas. None of these reports are made public by the ECI or the CEOs.

Soon after the completion of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, I submitted an RTI application to the ECI seeking the list of ‘expenditure sensitive’ constituencies and pockets identified by the CEOs, all the Expenditure Observer reports, and the consolidated seizure reports sent by every CEO when polling was completed.

After mulling over this request for two months, the ECI replied that it does not have such information in compiled form (despite the compilation requirement stipulated in its own election expenditure compendium) and that compiling such information would disproportionately divert its resources. The ECI denied access to the observer reports citing Section 8(1)(g) of the RTI Act, which protects the identity and safety of ‘intelligence informers’.

Simultaneously, I sought similar information from the CEO, Karnataka. The Public Information Officer (PIO) was silent about the ‘expenditure sensitive’ constituencies and cited a decision of the Central Information Commission (which is not even published on its website) to deny access to the observers’ reports. However, the PIO supplied, free of cost, a copy of the consolidated seizure report from its vault of sarkari secrets.

Surprisingly, none of the CEO’s figures match with the seizure data that the ECI released in May 2024. For example, the ECI said, cash worth Rs 92.55 crore was seized from across Karnataka. The CEO’s tabulated data shows only Rs 71.74 crore. Out of this, the authorities released Rs 24.43 crores during the election period itself for being kosher.

The ECI is silent about this fact. The ECI claimed seizure of 1.4729 crore litres of liquor worth Rs 175.36 crore. The CEO’s report shows seizure of 1.4773 crore litres worth Rs 179.49 crore. The ECI reported seizure of narcotics worth Rs 29.84 crore, but the CEO’s report shows their value as only Rs 11.96 crore. The ECI said, gold and silver items worth Rs 94.66 crore were seized, but the CEO’s consolidated report pegs this figure at Rs 22.81 crore. Which set of figures should one believe?

The CEO’s report says, 44,006 FIRs were registered in this regard -- Bangalore Central constituency, for instance, accounting for more than 3,000 of them. What has happened to these cases? The CEO and the ECI are conspicuously silent about these matters.