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Mismanagement or Manipulation?

  Over 13 crore names were left off the draft rolls by the ECI and the most revealing question is not “Why?” but “Who decided?” and “How were the names identified?”. Who decided? In the Indian Express’ investigation 1 , the two election commissioners reportedly said they hadn’t been consulted on multiple occasions, including the changes to Form 6. However, Election Commission’s affidavit in the Supreme Court says every decision was unanimous 2 . The thing is, both can be true, and that is the problem. Election commission is a 3-membered body with each member having same roles, responsibilities, and powers to take decisions. By plain corporate logic – this effectively means nobody answers to anybody and everybody is the boss. Such an operating model is designed for failure – which is exactly what is widely seen as the intention of the Congress party in 1993 3 . This is when the Congress government led by PV Narasimha Rao not only added 2 more Election Commissioners to an erst...
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Rally Mukt Election

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The Election Commission has extended its ban on physical rallies and roadshows until 22nd January. While lifting this ban is contingent on the COVID situation, political parties across the five poll-bound states are left with a shortage of ideas to fill this gap. The importance of such large-scale spectacular events for an election campaign can be understood by looking at the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi addressed over 140 rallies each, alongside 4 and 8 roadshows respectively. The Prime Minister himself covered over 1.5 lakh kilometers  addressing 1.5 crore people across the country 1 . To this effect, large amounts of money too are spent. BJP alone spent around 200 crores on rallies and processions, accounting for 17% of its total election expenditure 2 . However, the Lokniti CSDS post-poll survey revealed that 75% of voters denied attending any political meeting, rally, or procession during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections 3 . An obvious q...
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Location: New Delhi, Delhi, India
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Asking the Wrong Questions

With Punjab CM Mr Charanjit Singh Channi downplaying PM's security breach and mocking even the apprehensions of 'threat to life', the severity of the lapse (or conspiracy), that is yet to unfold, has been rightly exploded by the media. Reinforcing the Importance Of all other nations, India must take the security of the Prime Minister with utmost seriousness. It isn't just because India has had prominent precedents of such assassinations, both by internal and external threat elements, but also for its strategically manoeuvrable northern territory, flanked between rivals - Pakistan, China, and today's day Afghanistan. Given these factors and accelerated by former PM Indira Gandhi’s Assassination, SPG was formed as an independent agency for prime ministerial protection under the SPG Act 1985. Yet, in what is termed as a major security lapse, PM Narendra Modi was stranded for around 20 minutes on his way to Ferozpur during his recent visit to Punjab. What went wrong...
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Location: Delhi, India
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