The CPI(M) State Secretariat, through a press statement on Saturday, said that appointing the Chief Electoral Officer as the Chief Minister’s Secretary raises serious questions about the credibility of the Assembly election itself.
Kerala has never before witnessed such an appointment immediately after an election, in what appears to be a reward for services rendered. The developments now unfolding seem to validate the LDF’s allegation that the Election Commission had adopted several biased and suspicious positions in favour of the UDF during the election process.
It had earlier become controversial when a BJP seal appeared instead of the Election Commission’s seal on a letter sent to political parties. When similar appointments were made in West Bengal, Rahul Gandhi had tweeted that “the bigger the theft in the deal between the BJP and the Election Commission, the bigger the reward.” The AICC had also described those appointments as a shameless nexus and collusion. Rahul and the All India Congress Committee must now clarify whether what happened in Kerala is not similarly a shameless collusion between the Congress, the BJP, and the Election Commission.
Under the guise of the SIR process, millions of votes were allegedly removed in Kerala. The Left had raised objections at the time itself against the Commission’s stance of deleting genuine voters while retaining ineligible names. The Commission had also insisted on abruptly stopping voter registrations a week before the previously announced deadline, without informing anyone. The suspicion is now strengthening that this haste in finalising the rolls came only after ensuring that UDF votes had already been added.
The BJP seal appearing on an Election Commission letter was another instance of such interference. There were also several confusions regarding the allocation of symbols to LDF candidates, including in the Palakkad constituency. Complaints were raised that many LDF symbols were printed on voting machines in a manner that made them unclear. Kerala also witnessed lakhs of election-duty staff being denied voting rights. Even weeks after the election, the Commission was unwilling to release accurate polling percentages. There were also allegations that strong rooms had been opened. This appointment strengthens suspicions that there was a coordinated intervention behind all these developments.
In West Bengal, the appointment of Chief Election Officer Manoj Agarwal as Chief Secretary immediately after the election, and the appointment of Subrata Gupta—who led the SIR exercise—as the Chief Minister’s Principal Adviser, had triggered widespread criticism. Opposition parties, including the CPI(M), had raised the issue nationally. The AICC had demanded a cooling-off period before officials entrusted with election responsibilities could be given senior posts under the victorious government. The Congress party and Rahul Gandhi, who criticised the Bengal appointments at the national level, must explain how they view a similar move in Kerala.
At a time when the BJP-led Union government is attempting to undermine the neutrality of the Election Commission, Congress-led state governments too are engaging in similar interference. Election Commissions are increasingly becoming systems that function according to the wishes of political leadership. Strong protest is being registered against the interventions by both central and state governments that are eroding the credibility of the Election Commission itself.
