The Legitimation Crisis of Indian Elections
The Legitimation Crisis of Indian Elections
The Legitimation Crisis of Indian Elections
Posted on 28th August, 2024 (GMT 16:01 hrs)
ABSTRACT
The article “The Legitimation Crisis of Indian Elections” explores concerns about the integrity of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in India. It highlights significant discrepancies between votes polled and counted, with reports suggesting potential manipulation of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and questioning the Election Commission’s transparency. The article argues that these issues have deepened the legitimacy crisis of India’s electoral system, challenging the credibility of the current government and the democratic process as a whole.
“That a political party which works for the defense and growth of capitalism is called “Socialist,” and a despotic government “democratic,” and a rigged election “free” are familiar linguistic-and political-features which long predate Orwell.” — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (1964)
In the Orwellian dystopian state, the OBMA writers decide to expose the folly and futility of staged “free and fair” elections…
I. Introduction: Lies, Damn Lies, Pseudology of State and Statistics
In the year 1756, when the army of Nawab Siraj-Ud-Daulah attacked the Fort William in Calcutta and took down the East India Company, he imprisoned many of the prisoners of war in what came to be known as “the Black Hole of Calcutta”. One of the survivors, J. Z. Holwell, in his account to his friend Mr. William Davis, claimed that 123 of the 146 prisoners, who were put into that crammed dungeon, died an agonizing death. Afterwards, some of the historians have disputed the veracity of his account, given the fact that the said prison was 324 square feet, consisting of only two small windows.
How can such a confined, miniscule space contain so many prisoners in the first place? Does geometry disprove arithmetic, or rather, the statistical data as such, in this case?
II. Ineffable Disparities Amidst the Votes Polled and Votes Counted in the Lok Sabha Elections (2024): Reports
In the same way, the Indian parliamentary elections have shown parallels to the above case, in so far as the votes polled and the votes counted showed massive disparities. It was chiefly revealed by two organizations: Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Vote for Democracy, as well as The Quint and Poonam Agarwal.
Let us see what the Association for Democratic Reforms’ (ADR) report says:
It is seen that the ADR has identified discrepancies between the votes polled and votes counted in 538 constituencies during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections with a total difference of 5,89,691 votes. The discrepancies include instances where the number of votes counted either exceeded or fell short of the votes cast, raising concerns about the accuracy and integrity of the displayed electoral numbers. It was said that 5,54,598 fewer votes were counted in comparison to the votes cast in 362 seats, while 35,093 more votes were counted than the votes cast in 176 seats⤡. These issues suggest potential flaws in the electoral process, calling for further investigations in this regard. (Courtesy: The Hindu’s Article dated 29th July, 2024⤡)
Point to be noted: ADR’s report found a discrepancy of nearly 6 lakh votes between the number of votes polled and counted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
ADR’s Report on Discrepancies Between Votes Casted and Votes Counted VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 29th July, 2024 ©ADR)
Lok Sabha election: Report flags disparity between number of votes cast and votes counted VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 30th July, 2024 ©Scroll)
One may also view the report here ⤡:
The report further said that in the 2019 elections too, there were discrepancies in 347 contested seats. The difference between votes ranged from one vote to the highest vote numbers of 1,01,323. There were six seats where the discrepancy in votes was even more than the margin of victory. The total difference was 739104 votes.
Discrepancies_between_the_votes_cast_and_the_votes_counted_in_the_2024_Lok_Sabha_election_Multiple_perspectives_FinalVer_EnglishDownload
Earlier in July, Vote For Democracy (VFD) released its reports that reflected the same kind of situation that concerned itself with the alleged malpractices during the conduct of 18th Lok Sabha elections.
The report raised concerns about the roles of Election Commission of India (ECI) and Returning Officers, highlighting issues such as discrepancies between votes recorded in electronic voting machines (EVMs) and those actually counted. It also points to significant increases in the number of votes (5 crore) in each election phase—with detailed breakdowns statewise and nationally. While discussing these alleged irregularities, the report highlighted the following point of concern:
“It is perplexing to note that the report pointedly referred to a hike of a staggering total of five crore votes between initial and final voter turnout. After making an incisive analysis of such a confounding hike based on data and facts it persuasively opined that it is suggestive of significantly boosting the seats tally of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) which got the majority mark to form government with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister.” (emphasis added)
The VFD report alleged that the suspicious voter turnout increase in Phase 2 of the elections significantly favored the BJP/NDA, particularly in states like West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka. The report highlights that this trend was not observed in the other six phases of polling, raising suspicions of manipulation. The report claimed that the vote hikes potentially helped the BJP/NDA secure 76 additional seats, which they might have lost without these increases.
The VFD Report has also stated:
“The ECI did not explain as to why there was a substantial hike in the final figures, nor did the poll body explain the long delay (11 days!) in releasing the final figures and that too in percentages only.”
SOURCE COURTESY: Election Commission Must Respond to Doubts Raised Over Lok Sabha Polls by VFD Report VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 28th July, 2024 ©The Wire)
“A report by the Vote for Democracy (VFD) group has claimed that for all the seven phases considered together, the cumulative hike in votes from initial turnout figures is close to 5 crore votes, or 4,65,46,885 to be precise. The hike in voter turnout has disproportionately benefited the ruling regime, the report claimed.”
For the complete VFD Report, view the following:
FINAL-VFD-Report-July-30-2024Download
Poonam Agarwal‘s much earlier findings similarly highlighted the discrepancies in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections where for over 140 parliamentary constituencies, where more EVM votes were counted than polled. The Election Commission (EC) has not adequately explained this issue in any manner. In some cases, the difference between counted and polled votes is significant, raising serious concerns. The EC’s explanations and handling of these discrepancies, including the potential non-deletion of mock poll data, have been questioned again and again, but detailed clarifications are still pending or have been simply ignored.
SOURCE: In 140+ LS Seats, More EVM Votes Were Counted Than EVM Votes Polled. What’s Going On? VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 10th June, 2024 ©The Wire)
https://x.com/poonamjourno/status/1799301733669384511
In fact, the Quint reported on this matter in as early as April 2024:
EVM Vote Count Mismatch In 370+ Seats and EC Refuses to Explain VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reposted on 2nd April, 2024 ©The Quint)
The Election Commission (EC) responded to these claims by labeling them as part of a false campaign aimed at discrediting the sanctity of the election process. They emphasized that the counting process was transparent and any variations in turnout figures were due to legitimate reasons such as deletion of mock poll data. The EC urged the public not to be misled by misinformation.
Such denial of validated statistics from its own website is nothing new, and is for shielding the huge level of political corruption by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
False campaign being run to discredit LS polls, says EC on turnout figure claims VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 4th August, 2024 ©The Hindu)
III. Conclusive Stand
What does this lead us to?
The current government is illegal, since many of its “won seats” were alleged results of EVM manipulation/tampering, politically influencing the ECI and so on. Hence, it must step down. Resign and Recontest: with reference to the fundamental democratic right to recall political representatives!
In this connection, the 52nd constitutional amendment act on anti-defection (1985) and the 10th Schedule were added to the Indian Constitution. It clearly provided for the disqualification of the members of Parliament and the state legislatures on the grounds of defection.
Moreover, the Model Code of Conduct was infringed multiple times by the seating Prime Minister during the election campaigns, which further makes the case in favour of the Modi 3.0 Cabinet resigning immediately:
Furthermore, can stark criminals contest in elections, and even if they do and win seats, does not the ECI have the duty of taking firm actions against the said MPs, consequently to disqualify them?
However, the ECI seems to be deliberately mute with regard to any such issues. The ECI’s deliberate “delaying” of sharing the voter turnout speaks for itself about its far from neutral/independent but political role.
SC seeks EC response on plea over mismatch, delay in voter turnout data: ‘Why is it difficult to put it on website’ VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 17th May, 2024 ©Mint)
Moreover, no tech-savvy country of the world uses EVMs due to their proneness to manipulation and thereby carrying out deceit.
https://onceinabluemoon2021.in/2024/05/23/indian-general-election-2024-a-farce/
Thus, in effect, given such remaining areas of crucial investigation, the Indian electoral system faces a deepened legitimation crisis in terms of a defunct ECI, problematic EVMs, rigged cum influenced electoral processes through money and muscle power and so on. Democracy is severely misappropriate in the given state of affairs, as;
“This democracy makes possible prosperity without freedom. … Political equality now only means the formal right to equal opportunity of access to power, that is, ‘equal eligibility for elections to positions of power.’ Democracy no longer has the goal of rationalizing authority through the participation of citizens in discursive processes of will-formation. It is intended, instead, to make possible compromises between ruling elites.” (Jurgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, 1973)
APPENDIX:
DHFL⤡ ⤡: A CURIOUS CASE OF OPACITY
Factually speaking, India is always condemned for its data paucity, data opacity, data denial and data manipulation. If data could be manipulated in the world’ biggest democracy’s election (by cheating or by muscle power), it is not a big deal for the ruling party to MANeuver RBI-appointed CoC for DHFL⤡.
It is a tale of a particular pathological liar, a self-proclaimed “National convener”, who appeared on the stage of the suffering victims of financial abuse in 2019, when the RBI had forcibly put DHFL under the format of the ill-conceived IBC⤡ ⤡. He seemed like nothing more than a crafted or installed agent, aiming to dismantle the solidarity of the DHFL victims.
- a) This very person insisted on the issue of electing Mrs. Charu Sandeep Desai as a representative of of the FD-Holders; b) he arranged several unofficial conference calls in-between DHFL Victims and Mrs. Desai. He even collected money from some DHFL victims for alleged “litigation purposes”, which never materialized; c) when, due to non-transparency of the RBI-appointed CoC for DHFL⤡, the RP of the RBI-appointed CoC for DHFL, was in the public forum (though it was available in the un-downloadable image format with minimum readability), only he managed to collect and send it to Dr. Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay. The twist is that he vanished from the scenario after the adverse possession of the DHFL by Mr. Ajay Piramal⤡.
- At the beginning, the annoyed and vexed DHFL-Victims did not make out the dos and don’ts of such financial abuse. However, after filing numbers of RTIs⤡ and carrying out thorough empirical investigation, the victims have found several lacunas in the processes carried out by the RBI-appointed CoC for DHFL, including the fact that “…the [settlement] proposal is not made available to FD, NCD holders who constitute more than 65% of vote share of members of COC” (NCLT Order on the DHFL case, 19/05/2021), as well as the forced (?) absence of the erstwhile promoters of DHFL during the resolution cum voting processes⤡.
SMELLING THE RAT IN THE DHFL-COC RESOLUTION PROCESS: A LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF INDIA VIEW HERE⤡
The “Goodwill” (?) of R. Subramaniakumar, the ex-Administrator of DHFL VIEW HERE ⤡
Therefore, analogically speaking, the election of political parties and the voting system of RBI-appointed CoC are to be viewed through the lens of scepticism since both of them are lacking transparency. Just like the ECI, the RBI and IBBI seemed to have lost their accountability:
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