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...