This was interviewed by Gulam Jeelani. ADR co-founder Jagdeep Chhokar says that the Election Commission can conduct the revision exercise legally, but “that doesn’t mean you violate existing laws”. The Election Commission’s (EC) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar has triggered a political storm, with the opposition Congress dubbing it ‘a […]
The procedure specified for the revision violates existing legal provisions that the ECI has been following for a long time. The schedule is impractical. It might also result in the disenfranchisement of a substantial number of electors of Bihar. First, the facts. The current term of the Bihar state assembly ends on November 22, 2025. […]
AI risks distorting information but also holds untapped potential to improve electoral campaigns and processes. To this end, prebunking must be used by all stakeholders Bihar’s political landscape is gradually heating up in the wake of the upcoming Assembly polls with political parties crafting campaigns to woo voters. The campaigns will soon be dominated by artificial intelligence […]
I believe it is the institutions, or more specifically, institutional capture that has contributed very significantly to this success. Political commentary comes in two broad forms. The commentator either supports a particular ideology or political thinking, or tends or pretends to be neutral and tries to explain events or situations seemingly “objectively”. Regardless of the […]
Poll rule tweak is in keeping with stonewalling by the ECI over the past few years ADDRESSING a press conference on March 13 this year, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar asserted: “Hamare teen hee pillar hain — disclosure, disclosure, disclosure… Disclose everything to the public, to the voter, the voter have (sic) right to […]
A factual narration of what transpired when a citizen lodged a complaint for violation of the MCC to the highest levels in the ECI. Consider the following timeline: April 22, 2024: A complaint is lodged with the Election Commission of India (ECI), for violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by a star campaigner of one of […]
The way the ECI has decided to operationalise the entire exercise of ‘checking and verification’ mandated by the Supreme Court, is unlikely to lead to anything substantive. On April 26, 2024, the Supreme Court delivered the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) judgment rejecting the petitioners’ prayers for 100% counting of VVPAT slips and making Form 17C, […]
It deliberately chose to give the four ‘star campaigners’ of the Lok Sabha elections preferential treatment by not taking action for breaching the poll code. “Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar told Scroll on Monday that the Election Commission had deliberated over poll code violations during the 2024 general elections at length and had decided to […]
