Opposition parties and several social activists on Saturday stated that the Union government amending the Conduct of Election Rules to restrict public access to polls-related documents raises concerns about the role of the Election Commission.
The Congress asked why the Election Commission was “afraid” of transparency and said it would challenge the amendments in court, while the Aam Aadmi Party said the changes meant something was amiss.
As first reported by Scroll, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government on Friday amended Rule 93(2)(a) of the 1961 Conduct of Election Rules, which stated that “all other papers relating to the election shall be open to public inspection”.
The amended version of the rule said: “All other papers as specified in these rules relating to the election shall be open to public inspection.”
With this change notified by the Union Ministry of Law and Justice, in consultation with the Election Commission, not all poll-related papers can be inspected by the public. Only those papers specified in the Conduct of Election Rules can be inspected by the public.
The courts would also not be able to direct the poll panel to provide all election-related papers to the public.
This came days after the Punjab and Haryana High Court on December 9 directed the Election Commission to provide videography, security camera footage and copies of documents related to votes polled at a polling station during the recent Haryana Assembly elections to advocate Mehmood Pracha.
On Saturday, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said that the amendment to the Conduct of Election Rules was a “vindication” of the party’s repeated assertions regarding the “rapidly eroding integrity” of the electoral process managed by the Election Commission.
“Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and information will restore faith in the process – a reasoning the Punjab and Haryana High Court agreed with when it directed the ECI [Election Commission] to share all information that it is legally required to do so with the public,” Ramesh said on the social media platform X.
“Yet the ECI, instead of complying with the judgment, rushes to amend the law to curtail the list of what can be shared,” the Rajya Sabha MP added. “Why is the ECI so afraid of transparency?”
Ramesh said that the move would be challenged legally.
Karnataka minister and Congress leader Priyank Kharge also said that changing the rules shortly after a judicial directive strengthened doubts about the role of the Election Commission.
“Daal mein kuch kaala hai, ya daal hi kaali hain [Is there something black in the lentils, or are the lentils themselves black]?” he asked on X.
NS Boseraju, another minister in the state, noted that the amendment to the election rules violated democratic ethos and norms.
“By restricting public access to election-related documents, the [Prime Minister] Narendra Modi government has signalled its discomfort with accountability & integrity of elections,” he said on X. “What is it that they fear the people will uncover?”
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal said that the changes to the rules meant that something was “very wrong”. His party colleague PVS Sarma claimed that transparency had gone for a “morning walk” with the amendment.
Former Trinamool Congress MP Jawhar Sircar asked what the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union government was hiding.
“Why did it suddenly change Election Rules to STOP public from asking & examining Election records and data?” he asked on social media. “So frightened is Modi + Election Commission combine – that, as soon as High Court intervened – they took away rights.”
Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) spokesperson Anish Gawande also criticised the Union government’s “latest assault” on transparency with the changes in the election rules.
“This conveniently came days after the Punjab and Haryana High Court directed the EC to share security footage and vote-related documents from recent elections,” Gawande wrote on X. “Clearly, accountability is too much to ask for.”
Right to Information activist Anjali Bhardwaj said that the amendment to the Conduct of Elections Rules was a “huge setback” for transparency.
“Applications we filed under Rule 93(2) in May 2024 for copies of Form 17C still pending,” she added on social media.
The Election Commission had opposed the plea by Pracha in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. It had argued that Pracha was not a candidate in the Assembly polls, which took place in October, and therefore he cannot ask for the documents related to the election.
The High Court had directed the poll body to provide the necessary documents, including Form 17C both Part 1 and Part 2, within six weeks while accepting the argument by Pracha that the only distinction cast between a candidate and any other person is that while the documents have to be supplied free of cost to a candidate who contested the election, the documents are to be supplied to any other person subject to payment of the fee as may be so prescribed.
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