 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I'm Paranjoy Guha Thakurtha and we are now going to discuss the role of the election commission of India in during the Vidhan Sabha elections that are taking place in West Bengal. With me here I have from Kolkata joining me from Kolkata Johor shortcut. He's retired from the Indian administrative service. He was former secretary culture in the government of India. He was also the chief executive officer of the Prasad Bharti Corporation. Jodha thank you for giving us your time and giving the viewers of NewsClick your time. Before I ask you some specific questions about the role of the election commission of India in the West Bengal elections. Let me first start with the way you started an article of yours that was published in the Deccan Herald on the 18th of April. You have said that the former chief election commissioner Mr Sunil Arora who retired on the 13th of April. He was succeeded by Mr Susheel Chandra. You say that he was the most controversial chief election commissioner in recent memory and you refer to his name figuring in the recorded conversations involving corporate lobbyist Neera Rajya. And if I may refresh your memory those recordings which were never denied by Mr Arora has him suggesting that judges can be fixed. So what's new? So what's new? You didn't mention about his brother certain allegations against his brother made by who's an officer of the in the Ministry of External Affairs. But I want to ask you why have you described Mr Sunil Arora as the most controversial chief election commissioner in recent memory. Does it have something to do with the circumstances under which Mr Ashok Lavasa who would have succeeded him the way he chose to go to Manila to join the Asian Development Bank. And we know in 2019 how Mr Ashok Lavasa was overruled when he pointed out alleged violations of the model code of conduct by Mr Amit Shah by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Why don't you tell us why you think Mr Arora is the most controversial CEC? In a way my opinion that I've given and all opinions are subject to debate. But when I give an opinion like that I'm reflecting the view of a large group in which I am a large group, the largest ever group of retired IS, IPS, IFS and Central Service Officers. By far the largest group that has ever collected together and again historically the first group of retired officers ever in the history of independent India to take a shape and form and constantly keep reminding the government of their constitutional duties. It's a constitutional conduct group that I'm talking about and we have sent a similar thing to the President of India because he happens to occupy the constitutional post. Now it is not in my nature to be taking off or to be saying such things about colleagues and the junior colleague as to that. I have had the misfortune of working with him and... He missed fortune, good fortune. Whatever, whatever, you can't choose your colleagues, you can't choose your parents, you can't choose your neighbors. So there are certain things that you can't choose. So what has to get used to it and I was warned that he is rather difficult and that he has connections with political powers which cross the level of decency. We have all had to interact with political forces but somehow we have maintained our Lakshman Rekha if I may use that term. Anyway, coming back to Saroda's handling of the commission, one could get into something like a hundred examples of the commission that he presided over where what would have expected in all fairness a more impartial decision. Be the way he carried on in his own cavalier way, some would call it absolutely shameless way, he carried on his conduct irrespective of what public voices, what voices in civil society and what the collective voice of more than a hundred of his colleagues senior to him kept on saying because he was denigrating the services also. You must remember when you get such a bad apple, he denigrates the service also. People seem to think that the whole service might be as valuable as this fellow. Now he had been behaving, it's not a personal picturization of a man I would not like to discuss but then this is the collective view and I have only mentioned that and there's enough proof to go by it. And this has been given in writing and not only me, lots of journalists have said the same thing in different words. The very day that I wrote Prabhu Chala wrote somewhere about the same thing and he's a fast senior journalist. So this is the general opinion and as you know there is a talk that he has already been rewarded. At least in the case of Gogo, I think they waited two weeks. In this gentleman's case, don't seem to wait two days to reward him. Okay, we'll have to wait and watch. We'll wait and watch what Mr. Aurora, what kind of appointment he gets or does not get but let's go back to the topic of discussion and the alleged bias of the election commission of India in conducting the elections in West Bengal. You know article you talked about never before in the history of Kulkata airport has that airport handled no less than 140 chartered aircraft and helicopters within the span of just about five weeks and almost all of them, you say 90% of these were hired by the Bharti Janta party and elsewhere I've read that each trip by a chartered aircraft from Delhi to Kulkata would be priced not less than 10 lakh rupees. Now the question would be with this huge display of money and money power, do you think the election commission of India should have been questioning, raised some questions as to who was spending this kind of money on hiring aircraft and helicopters? They may not, if I were there as CEC, I would have raised it in my own way at some public fora but the rules don't actually empower the CEC to talk of party expenditure except to remind them that every expenditure has to be accounted for and sent to them. The laws governing elections is made by politicians and the election commission has a long history of quarrels with the political establishment over making the processes more and more transparent and it doesn't matter who was part of the establishment at that point of time, we may not have completely autocratic or draconian parties but even before that the political establishment was always not willing to join in the game of transparency. This applies for let us say criminal candidates, candidates with criminal histories. This applies for expenditure, unlimited expenditure that political parties can make. While a candidate is circumscribed, political parties are still left open. On that account, it displays a brazen expenditure, earning an expenditure that the BJP has to account for and I'm sure they'll find some electoral bond or some other. There you are, you mentioned precisely the point. We have already have a system called electoral bonds. You yourself have commented about how the election commission of India after having opposed them at one stage of time in the Supreme Court says, oh, I mean, almost giving it a sort of a clean chit and those electoral bonds are about as opaque as opaque can be, they're certainly not transparent and that could explain how this money is being splurged. No, it could explain how the money can be accounted for. The splurging and the source of money can come from different sources and not necessarily in this case but in all cases because we have had interactions of more than four decades with the political establishment and political parties and we know their style of functioning from a little closer distance. But when they're to give account, they need separate parties and the electoral bond which was a master stroke by Mr. Jaitley, God bless his soul, was created and only somebody like him of course in the hoots with someone else would come up with such a brilliant piece of obfuscation and with the courts being so indulgent in every such matter, though they are so concerned about whether Shaheen Bagh is blocking the roads in Delhi, whether they are more concerned about whether somebody waved a pistol, their sense of priority sometimes leaves us aghast. Nobody has found time to give hearings to let us say even Article 370 and many others but they have time over time to give Annab Goswami bail. So their sense of priorities is something that citizens are amazed. Okay. Yorda, the fact that elections are taking place in West Bengal, as we talk, we still have a few more phases left of the elections still to go. In eight phases, never before, it's been held in five phases and six phases and seven phases, never in eight phases. When Mr. Yorda was asked this question, he said it was held in seven phases five years ago, so what's wrong if it's held in eight phases? It's not a big deal, exact words that he used. Now the question is, is this really out of the ordinary or okay, West Bengal has 294 assembly constituencies, there are eight phases of elections. Tamil Nadu has 234 assembly constituencies, it happens on one day. In Kerala, 140 assembly constituencies, one day. It's all 6th of April, Puducherry 30 constituencies, 6th of April, one day. So is it something unusual about West Bengal that you know the election commission of India needs to deploy central forces, wants to ensure that the administration is able to ensure free and fair elections that it is conducting these elections over eight phases? I mean at least that seems to be the logic that they've used. Well, they have conducted it in multiple phases in the past, but not such an absurd number of eight. Eight is of course Mr. Sunil Arora's contribution, but what is more remarkable is the way the eight phases have been clumped, have been arranged. I've put it this way that if you go through the map of the eight zones, eight phase-wise zones, you will notice that zones usually have two to three components. I mean one zone would consist of a block of district here, another few consequences in another district, another few consequences in another district. That'd be what I call a primary cluster, a secondary cluster, a tertiary cluster. These things are evidence of tuberocratic mind, I've worked with them so I know. Now here, what matters most is that it obviously gives an advantage to some bodies or somebody or some bodies who need to fly in from outside. It's been almost arranged in such a manner as if the two diary of visiting dignitary and the clumping or the clustering of consequences has been done in tandem so that somebody can fly in for a few hours, give his portion and go back. If I can put some words into your mouth, what you are suggesting is that far from it being administratively convenient, far from the fact that investment all elections are being held in eight phases, the fact that it will ensure deployment of central forces so that elections are held in a free and fair manner. What you're suggesting, not in so many words, but you're suggesting that these elections are being held in eight phases to suit the convenience of certain dignitaries and you're not mentioning the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Home Minister Amit Shah but it's about as clear as clear can be what you are suggesting. Okay, I'll put it this way. If A, this is nothing original that has come from me, this has come from many others as well, I've had the opportunity of conducting the strict level elections at least three times where the shoe pinches and then I was entrusted with the task of being the chief electoral officer for West Bengal for conducting the 1998 and the 1999 polls. There are a few facts that stand out. Number one, West Bengal has traditionally been underpoliced. The police to citizen ratio, he was very poor during my time, it's improved a bit but still underpoliced. B, that long chicken type state that you keep seeing is perhaps the densest state, densest population in India. It looks like it's a little long chicken with a neck coming in, a neck borrowed partly from Bihar to join the two wings. Now it is very, very dense in population and compared to that, the policing is a little less so bringing our central forces is not it's so fact to malify but to make it into a couple of phases, two phases or maybe three phases is perfectly okay given the terrain of the place and given the history of violence. If you look back, you will see more violence taking place in many other states but there's this tendency to tie up a couple of deaths that happen in every elections with a violent picture of the state. So phasing and bringing in central forces are not as I said ab initio or it's of act to malify but the way that clustering has been done if you notice and six phases have already been done and you can compare what I said with the two diary of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, it will be abundantly clear to you that they have actually taken advantage of this phasing to be present at every phase and to address a central point in a cluster. It's a fact, it's a fact, it's in the public domain. So you can say they took advantage of the clustering, someone else can say that the clustering was made for them to take advantage of it. No Prime Minister has ever come so many times. In fact, the gentleman may not have come so many times in the last three years to this state. Let's move on. Both you and I, we are part of a group called the Citizens Commission on Elections. Now on the 28th of January, a report was presented and we know that the Citizens Commission on Elections is headed by retired judge of the Supreme Court of India, Justice Madan Lokur, where it has been pointed out, various issues have been pointed out about the working of the EBMs, the Electronic Voting Machines and you have pointed out that the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, she has written to the Chief Election Commissioner to tally the votes recorded by the Electronic Voting Machines with the VV Pat slips, the VV Pat, VV Pat stands for voter verifiable paper audit trip. Now she said instead of staying for seven seconds, it should stay for 15 seconds, then more VV Pat slips should be counted. Instead of five, many more should be counted, there are about 180 to 280 per group and it seems that the Election Commission of India has gone by the judgment of the Supreme Court of India, a bench headed by the former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Goghoy. So you seem to have a lot of problems with the way the process is, the election process and the election administration is, the way the election is being administered. So this is true for the whole of India, so it's also true for West Bengal. What's the big deal? I'll put it this way. The whole of India or the conscious part of it went to the Supreme Court in December 2018. They knew what was happening or they could guess what was happening. Incidentally, I conducted the last paper ballot vote in 1998 and the first EVM vote in 1999 had to go from every district to district, explain to political parties and candidates, this is not a jadu, this is not a this thing, this machine actually works. Why on earth should I take a stand along with many others after 20 years? The question was 20 years ago, the question hack, hacking did not exist. In 20 years, technology has changed, intervention is possible, technological experts are pointed out in India and abroad. So there is no remedy to it. The only saving grace is to use both electrical electronic machines together. Now the VVPAT which is like a credit card slip printer that you see in every shop, you punch a thing and a little bit of slip comes out. This slip doesn't come out in the open, it comes into a little transparent box where you can see it. Now this VVPAT machine has been made compulsory by the orders of the Supreme Court to be attached to every EVM. Okay, so we have these VVPAT machines, these printer machines and these sealed boxes where the slips go available at public cost, your tax and my tax in every constituency, in every booth, in every polling station. The election commission, especially under Sunil Arora, had a peculiar allergy to counter it. Now our point is since you have the boxes and they are meant to provide additional comfort, additional proof, so why don't you just count it? Okay, let me interrupt you. And the Supreme Court went along with the view of the Election Commission of India that if you count each and every slip on the VVPAT machine, the voter verifiable paper audit fail machine, it would delay the announcement of the election by five or six days. But what you are arguing and people like you and many others like you arguing that this is not true, that actually the extra time that would be taken. This is a white lie, this is a white lie, a gray lie, a blue rye, a saffron lie, whatever you call it. You see, we have conducted elections. I don't know whether Sunil has ever conducted an election. You can have a district stint without ever conducting an election. I don't know whether he's done it or whether this mischief came to the mind of the commission because of certain forces planted there at the appropriate level. I'm not going for naming them right now, but we have enough proof of electronically, let us say, advanced officers being there to advise an electronically smart regime. Okay, what we are saying basically is that a little slip comes out. You think logically, a ballot paper was like the size of a Times of India newspaper or even a little smaller. A ballot paper had all its formalities and we have done the ballot counting again and again. We know it's a bit of a clumsy process, but it takes 8, 10, 12 hours. In Bengal, it took a little longer because the communist government said they'll give overtime. So overtime and unionized workers, it took us 12 kejaga, 14 hours, 16 hours maybe at times. But 8 to 10 hours is pretty good. That is, if you count the ballot paper of this size after arranging the various ballot boxes, et cetera, here are little slips that come out and the whole banjo will be like this. Please try to understand polling booth has less than a thousand voters. At least this time it's been mandated that you can't come near a thousand. So let us assume that has around 800 voters on an average and say 80% of their votes vote. So you have about 630, 650 people voting. 600 slips of credit card slips will come into a piece like this. You can just place them and counting them, sorting them out like cards, you could bring an expert card player, sorting them into name-wise is a chance play. So that's one round as we call it. 12, 14 or 16 tables count 12, 14 or 16 polling stations. Now with around 220 polling stations, you multiply the time. So it can't take more than six hours. That's our calculation. And this election commission has lied to its feet. So instead of taking these days, you're saying, someday we shall fix those who lied that it takes five to six days. And just because they voted, we need to agree. All right. So you made yourself very clear. You're saying instead of five to six days, if you want to count all the VVPAT slips, it'll take five to six hours, right? No, no, six to six to eight hours, depending on if you bring card specialist, they'll count it faster. Javada, let's move on. We don't have too much time. Quick answers to the questions that will follow. Aja, once the model code of conduct comes into force, the election commission of India has a right to transfer appoint officers. So what's your objection to the appointment of Vivek Dubey as the Special Police Office of the Election Commission? Just because the Trinomul Congress was not happy with his alleged role in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, what's wrong? Well, why is the Chief Minister of West Bengal Ms. Mamata Banerjee accusing a senior official of the Election Commission of India, Sudeep Jain of bias? So I mean, why are you unhappy? Well, why does your article mention some of these points, some of these transfers? My name, yes. These are not transfers. Number one, these are postings. Postings, I beg your pardon. And these are postings and Mamata Banerjee has had a problem with this Vivek gentleman. I had no clue about it except when the Kujbihar incident happened. And in the Kujbihar incident, which is one of the most blatant cases of direct, unprovoked firing. You're talking about what happened on the 10th of April when the security forces, there were four Muslims who were killed at Shidolkuchi and yes. They have not been able to bring one Ayyota proof that these fellows, these people attacked them. I can't understand why four impoverished immigrant Muslims, they had migrated to Kerala and come back home. Why four migrant laborers would on earth go and attack an equal number of armed constables, I mean armed policemen. It was just panic reaction. They don't understand the language, they don't understand the expressions and they did not have a local police officer with them which is mandated. There is no proof accepting the statement made by this Vivek gentleman that and a local police report that has not come out in the public domain. There is no proof and I have no cause with what Mamata Banerjee has said. She is disappointed with many things. I am disappointed with her also. That's beside the point. Joharda, you are saying that where the election commission of India has worked, it reveals a clear bias in favor of the Bharti Janta party and against the Thirumul Congress and you've given a series of examples and let me cite some of those examples. The injury to the chief minister's leg. The election commission of India describes the chief minister's allegations as undermining the very fabric and foundation of the constitution of India. The director in charge of security, Vivek Sahai, another Vivek, other police personnel responsible for the chief minister's security, they were suspended. Now, there are a number of examples but the election commission has dismissed the allegations that Ms. Mamata Banerjee made that in Nondigram goons from outside were bought in. On the contrary, we are saying that the election commission has been rather soft when one of her former aides now with her political opponent, Shubhindo Dikari has suggested that if people don't vote for the BJP or if they vote for the TMC, there would be a mini Pakistan in Nondigram and there were a whole lot of other incidents. Let me quickly run through some of them and get your view. The Trinamul Congress moved the election commission of India on Prime Minister Modi's visit to a shrine in Bangladesh which is revered by the Motua community. The Motuas are an influential community. They comprise 15% of the population of the state. It is argued that they could influence the outcome of about 40 or 45 with Ansaba constituencies out of a total of 294 in the state. Then the election commission of India has issued a show cause notice to Ms. Mamata Banerjee for appealing to the Muslims to not to let the BJP divide their votes. I could go on and on. The most recent example has been that the election commission of India has rejected the demand of the Trinamul Congress to hold the last few phases of the poll at one go given the COVID situation. But why do you say that it's one-sided? The election commission has been biased or one-sided. I mean eventually action was taken against Dilip Ghosh, Rahul Sinha who said not four persons but eight persons should have been killed at Shrital Kuchi. Yeah, maybe the action was delayed. Maybe the action happened not when Mr. Arora was there but when he was succeeded by Mr. Sushil Chandra. Yeah, we can go on and on about this but why do you say that the election commission of India is wrong? We do not know about the conduct or how Mr. Sushil Chandra conducts the election. We are yet to come face his let us say his tenure. The article was primarily on Sunil Arora No. 1 and Sunil Arora did not raise any question on the Prime Minister. Didi or Didi, I mean I could hear a cat call almost. Didi or Didi, I mean one doesn't speak, one with proper breathing doesn't speak like that about a woman in front of so many people. One minute, no action was taken. One minute, you are suggesting that Prime Minister Narendra violated the model code of conduct by saying Didi or Didi, which you allege was mocking a woman in public in front of a large gathering of people. It is the video has been sent. If you see the video or run it, your viewers can take a view like this. You know, sexism has its limit. It comes out of the whistles and the taunts of such people who are not sensitized to it. The way you don't use such terms and you don't use such expressions, expressions. So I have a grouse there and many, many people have a grouse there. Many women's groups and many civil society groups have also protested. Be on Mamta Banerjee's injury at Nandi Gram, I have not commented. The paper has given a list but I have not commented because I am not aware. Nobody wears a plaster like that. What happened between her and the election commission? The Chief Minister has also said the model code of conduct should be renamed the Modi code of conduct. When you do things like this, you would invite a comment like this. I mean, you could have, if you had taken action on Narendra Modi in 2019, when a series of actions were taken, when you took action against Mr. Narendra Modi's excesses in Bihar elections, in Bengal elections, you could have wrapped up the Chief Minister and told her where she gets off. Don't use such statements. But I have not made any such comments because what happens between the lady and the commission is their matter. It's only when it crosses over into the public domain that I as a citizen, a concerned citizen, have expressed my views. This firing at Sitalkuchi is the last straw on the camel's back. I have served for more than 42 years, had to go through incidents of firing and everything. There are rules. There are rules that are procedures. None of them have been maintained and this Vivek, whatever the way or somebody goes and gives a report, he excelled in the last 2019 elections and therefore is brought in and obviously with the concurrence of the Home Ministry and then the election commission without applying its mind collectively says, yeah, everything is okay. In March, the election commission of India changed their rule. The earlier rule said that if a particular person is to act as an agent of a political party in a polling station or a polling booth, she or he has to be registered as a voter in that particular Vidhan Sabha constituency. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, has to be registered within the jurisdiction of that polling station or that polling booth. But now they've changed the rule to say anybody in that Vidhan Sabha constituency can act as a polling agent. Now, do you, I mean, it has been alleged that this rule was changed by the election commission of India essentially to favour the Bharti Janta Party. Do you agree with this view? There was an audio tape that had come out in a conversation. I'll add to that. Shishil Kothoria, he was a business person who was formerly aligned with the Communist Party of India Marxist who is now with the CPIM talking to Dilip Ghosh. Yes. So that had that tape not come out, one would have let it go. It's a question of what do you term by, what do you mean by the term local? Local usually meant somebody in the booth because that polling agent has a function to function. He's not sitting there on that bench and taking packets of food. He has a function in the form of identifying local voters of that polling area, that small area. Now, if he's not required for that, the election commission must bring out a speaking order that the polling officer is not required. The polling agent is not required for such purposes. We have been brought up in the tradition of having local polling agents of political parties who would immediately get up and say, no, no, no, no, this is not Paranjaya Guhatakuta. I know he has a beard. So that role is being diluted. Number one, number two, it is a pointer that the entire elections are being carried out by the BJP on the basis of imported support. Their leaders, their top leaders are important. Their cheerleaders, their campaigners are important, their money is important, their planes are important, everything is important, including the things that they use to explode. Everything is important. So now, it also means that since I don't have any local support, I'll get people from wherever of that huge place of about two lakhs and I'll get people at any cost, mark my word, cost to come and sit in them. It reveals, it reveals. I'm not in agreement with the Trenomal Congress's thing that role this necessary means supporting. I am putting it the other way that it reveals that the BJP doesn't have any local strength in most places, it has to import people. Okay, we're almost out of time. My last question to you. If indeed, I believe, I go along with your argument that the Election Commission of India has not been neutral. It has not been objective. It's not been unbiased. It has been biased in favor of the Bharti Janta Party and against the Trenomal Congress and other political parties in the ongoing West Bengal elections. Do you think that the alleged bias of the Election Commission of India will have a bearing on the outcome of the elections? And we will really know only on the 2nd of May. I can't tell you, but I don't deal with political astrology, whether it'll have, but it surely has an impact on the people, on observers, on people who are in the north things. And what is most strange is that these fellows don't realize that the more they do such things, the more they antagonize people with common sense, the more they behave like colonial with colonial swagger, the more they push people to the Trenomal camp. So it's going to be the people they want to satisfy. The people they want to satisfy are actually harmed because their opponents get the sympathy wave, the underdog wave. You get my point? Okay, I got you, sir. Thank you so much, Mr. Johar Sharkar. Joharda, thank you so much for giving us your time and holding forth in such a candid manner about why you feel the Election Commission of India has been particularly biased in favour of the BJP during the West Bengal Assembly elections and why you believe that the former Chief Election Commissioner, Mr. Sunil Arora, has arguably been the most controversial Chief Election Commissioner in recent memory. Thank you very much for being with us and keep watching Newslink.