EC officials height of ignorance!

In a country where a government babu refuses to waste a glance at you as you try to pose him a query in his bastion, nothing can be more frustrating than finding your name deleted or missing from the voters list.

EC officials’ height of ignorance! From R.M.S. Atwal CHANDIGARH, May 14 – As Punjab along with the rest of the country wait with a bated breath for the poll outcome on May 16, one thing is crystal clear that the average Indian voter is not a happy man today. India’s Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Navin Chawla and Punjab’s Chief Electoral Officer, Ms Kusumjit Sidhu, and State security forces are all patting themselves for the ‘smooth’ conduct of this mammoth democratic exercise. But the ‘Aam Admi’ remains a disgusted and disgruntled lot. These two words should be sufficient enough to describe the electorate for more than one reason at the end of the polling process yesterday. In a country where a government ‘babu’ refuses to waste a glance at you as you try to pose him a query in his ‘bastion’, nothing can be more frustrating than finding your name ‘deleted’ or missing from the voters’ list. Needless to say, in these elections there were mistakes galore in voter cards due to which most of the voters could not exercise their franchise this time, as during earlier occasions. The worse hit was the illiterate rural voters. These discrepancies occurred despite the fact that election officials entrusted with this task had all the time in the world to finish the electoral process in time and avoid blunders. Looking at the nature of mistakes, no wonder election officials come under the public scathing attack for pure ignorance. Most of them were found to be even deficient in basic computing skills. While it was good to see the electronic voting process in action, and now that CEC has even decided to videograph the entire counting process, but the moot point is how trained are election officials in absorbing modern technology. With reported incidents of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) non-functioning yesterday, one fails to understand how effective dry-runs were prior to the polling. Election officials are answerable to the public for the dereliction of duty and deserve punishment. At some places yesterday, angry voters were even demanding to put the erring officials behind the bars. Does the CEC and the CEO have an answer to the public outcry? Some people were of the view that the CEC should initiate a departmental enquiry against such officials. Why not deduct their salaries to teach them a lesson for a shoddy work done? That way they may feel the pain and suffering of the ‘Aam Aadmi’. According to the intelligentsia, it would have been better had the CEC entrusted the entire election process to a private agency. The voter does not even mind shelling out some money for the job done perfect. It is the irony of fate that on the one hand government officials are opposing privatization and, on the other, they don’t want to lift a finger (and they ‘lift’ a wrong computer key!) Contrary to official claims that violent incidents in Punjab and elsewhere were not election-related, these elections did witness violence yesterday during the final phase of polling. Despite strict security arrangements everywhere, voters were beaten up. Even scribes were not spared. Agreed, the police presence can’t be everywhere but poll violence could be avoided to a large extent. Talking about politics behind (dirty) politics, it is an open secret how elections are won and how the electorate is ‘influenced’ to vote for a particular candidate or a party. Despite the EC code, liquor and money did flow in tons during these elections. More will flow during ‘horse-trading’ after the coveted results. Well, it’s Indian politics! Thinking of the common man, now that elections are over, he shudders at the very thought of power-cuts and ever-rising prices. In a nutshell, the day after, he is back to square one! Ever skeptical, the common man does not think these elections will change his fortunes because his daily grind is on, and on. (R.M.S. Atwal is Freelance Journalist and can be reached at rajatwal55@yahoo.com)