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Why election integrity matters

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EC’s actions are taking away power of everybody’s vote Alok Tiwari After the Bengal elections and charges of large-scale irregularities in electoral roll revision, the reaction has been predictable and along the now familiar fault lines. While many felt that the Bengal elections were stolen for BJP by the Election Commission through an opaque and incomplete SIR process, others pointed to anger at Mamata Banerjee’s misrule. The latter were also at pains to point out that SIR was also conducted in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the other states that went to polls along with West Bengal, and that BJP would have won in WB even without SIR deletions. There is a kernel of truth in all this. Obviously, Mamata’s misrule was a real problem. She had faced and fought against the thuggish government of CPI(M) for years. But when she finally wrested power from them, she incorporated some of the same practices as her predecessors. Many times, it was the same set of people too. This meant much less atten...
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BJP won, democracy lost

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Crooked manner of SIR has cast a long shadow on Bengal elections Alok Tiwari Despite the stunning rise of film star Vijay’s TVK party in Tamil Nadu and Congress’s return to power in Kerala, the just concluded round of state elections were mostly about West Bengal. This was the election with highest stakes and where BJP applied its full might to remove the three-term incumbent Mamata Banerjee. In the end it crushed Mamata’s TMC, winning over 200 of the 294 seats and confining TMC to two digits. The Left and the Congress remained on the sidelines. What made the Bengal polls different was the long and bitter fight not just over promises, policies, and performance but also on the process. TMC challenged the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls launched by the Election Commission months before the elections at every step. Mamata herself appeared before the Supreme Court. Nothing new in this. There were many challenges to SIR from several states in its new avatar that se...
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Maharashtra’s solar bungle

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State is punishing clean energy to save inefficient and corrupt utilities Alok Tiwari By all accounts, Maharashtra’s solar train was chugging along nicely. With 18 GW of installed solar and wind energy capacity, it ranks third, behind only Rajasthan and Gujarat. It overtook Tamil Nadu last year. Its total renewable power capacity has increased nearly 160% in the last decade. The state now produces about 40 million units of electricity daily through renewable sources. The renewables constitute a third of total energy mix with plans to take it to over half by 2030 and two thirds in another 10 years. Then, suddenly Maharashtra started to apply brakes on solar generation. At least on some parts of it. While it remains supportive of pure play solar generation projects, it has stopped looking kindly at rooftop solar power. It has come up with several measures that seek to significantly increase cost for rooftop generators. The worst of these leave out small household installations fo...
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Behind the smokescreen

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Poll considerations, not empowerment, prompted delimitation and women’s bills Alok Tiwari Last week the opposition won a rare victory in parliament when it blocked the government’s bills to undertake a fresh delimitation exercise for the Lok Sabha and state assemblies and provide a 33% reservation for women in expanded houses. Had the move passed, it would have taken the Lok Sabha strength to 850 from the present 543. It would have also increased the strength of all state assemblies from the present just over 4,000 to over 6,000. The opposition had no problems with reserving one third of the seats for women. It saw red in linking the move with expanding the Lok Sabha and carrying out new delimitation process. That would have upset all political calculations. Southern states have long been against delimitation fearing losing political clout even more owing to relatively slower rate of population growth that they have achieved over the decades. They argued they have done better i...
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Asha Bhosle: A voice for all ages

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The versatile singer made every era of music her own Alok Tiwari When someone lives to be 92, you kind of anticipate their passing. Not immediately, not tomorrow, maybe not for another decade if they are in good health. But it is something that can happen anytime. Yet, when Asha Bhosle passed into history last Sunday, it felt strangely remiss, like something that should not have happened. It even felt as if it could not happen. For a lot of us, her voice was like seasons, that was always around. From long before we were born. Perhaps, it was her longevity, or longevity of her career. She had been singing for nearly eight of her nine decades on this earth. Perhaps, it was the fact that she continued singing almost till the end. We could never call her a singer of yesteryears. Perhaps because she appeared to be the last link to a musical age that seems well and truly over. With her passing there is finality to that end. A handful of people from that era may still be around but it...
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A troubling chronology of EC

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A series of bad faith moves has eroded credibility of election process Alok Tiwari It appears Bengal elections will go ahead with over 20 lakh voters who were in 2002 list excluded from the rolls this time. This is not a small number. Across the state, it can influence the outcome. Many close contests are decided by margins of less than a few thousand votes. This is being done on mere doubt raised by the election commission under the hotly contested Special Intensive Revision of rolls undertaken in the state just before the assembly elections. It is astounding that the supreme court has okayed this exclusion citing lack of time to decide on the voters’ appeals for inclusion. In doing so, the court has placed convenience of EC, the constitutional body most under suspicion, over constitutional right of the citizens. What happened to the principle of innocent until proved guilty principle? Court could have just as easily allowed them to vote in the election pending adjudication of t...
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Prohibit the prohibition

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Banning liquor and meat smacks of intolerance more than social reforms Alok Tiwari This month Madhya Pradesh implemented a liquor sale ban in 19 cities, towns, and villages in a dramatic expansion of prohibition policy in the state. All these are Hindu pilgrim places and it is another step by chief minister Mohan Yadav to appease the Hindu sentiments. Having nothing much to show for by way of governance, Yadav has been resorting to such gimmicks pretty much like most other BJP chief ministers in the country. Earlier in his term, he had launched a drive targeting the meat shops, mostly belonging to Muslims, in the name of hygiene. Prohibition is certainly not new for the country. Large swathes have come under prohibition at various times only to be withdrawn eventually. However, it remains in place in significant pockets. Gujarat is one state that has been under prohibition for decades as a misguided and dishonest homage to Mahatma Gandhi. So has been Wardha district in Maharash...
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