Our Election Commission had been put in the dock by our united opposition (300 plus MPs marching to the EC’s door) and I am mystified by how badly it is handling the crisis. Like, why so defensive and skittish?
Rewinding to roughly a month ago, I am sure the couple now known for all eternity as the Coldplay concert cheaters has wondered a million times since the kiss camera picked them out on that fateful night how their lives would have played out if they had managed to keep their heads in that moment. Instead of ducking and turning, what if they had stayed relaxed, even smiled and waved at the camera while casually shifting into a more platonic, socially irreproachable hug? Would Chris Martin still have been prompted to make that damning ‘having an affair’ remark? Would every jobless person on the internet have immediately made it his/her holy mission to image search and identify them on the spot? Would he still have a job and would she still have blessed anonymity? Probably yes.
It is easier said than done, of course, but the phrase Keep Calm and Carry On (originally a motivational poster produced by the UK government in 1939 in preparation for WWII) has not become a massive meme for nothing. It is advice worth its weight in gold—to stay unblinking and unrattled and in-the-moment during a sudden, massive crisis.
Imaging: Deni Lal
Any professional in the image/crisis management industry would tell the EC that the smartest thing to have done, after Rahul Gandhi held that massive press con on August 7 (what fantastic optics, by the way! A lone man facing a sea of journalists in a crumpled T-shirt. Rahul’s grizzled styling is becoming fully Zelensky lite while our PM is too reluctant to face even a one-on-one interview with the Indian press dressed in a bespoke bandhgala), is to thank him for bringing the issue to their notice and to appoint an investigative committee to deal with the ‘allegations’. After all, the Congress has made similar accusations in the past, most notably regarding EVMs which fizzled out ignominiously. Depriving the issue of oxygen of public attention would have caused it to peter out, especially with all the sound and the fury of the Trumpian drama playing out constantly in the background—50 per cent tariffs, and who-stopped-the-war and what not.
Instead, the EC has behaved like a complete puppet of the government, neglected to put up even a token display of neutrality and insultingly dismissed our legally elected leader of opposition like he is a witless upstart. So now they are dealing with a self-created PR disaster, where Akhilesh Yadav gets to cut a dashing figure, leaping nimbly over police barricades in his eye-catching lal-topi. Rahul Gandhi, with the virtuous glow of a man who has done his homework well, gets to court arrest outside the EC. The INDIA bloc gets to gleefully chant slogans outside the monsoon session of Parliament. And, the YouTuber brigade—Dhruv Rathee, the Deshbhakt, Ajit Anjum—get to put out episodes pretty much agreeing with everything the Congress is alleging, with a special focus on how sus the SIR of the Bihar voters list is, and how the PDF of the draft list has now been replaced by scanned photographs on the state’s EC website, making checking a daunting, backbreaking task.
It would seem that the Congress, for once, has hit pay dirt. #Votechori is not a political issue, it is the bedrock of our democracy, and has the potential to rouse regular folk to anger and (even worse) vigilance.
Gyanesh Kumar and Co certainly haven’t kept their calm. It remains to be seen if they can carry on.
editor@theweek.in