From April-May 2020, Indian and Chinese troops had been at a stand-off at multiple points of the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh.
New Delhi: The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) informed parliament on Friday (November 29) that the patrolling arrangement agreement with China, reached a month ago for Depsang and Demchok, has been “implemented,” while the terms of disengagement at earlier friction points in Eastern Ladakh border stand-off remain unchanged.
From April-May 2020, Indian and Chinese troops had been at a stand-off at multiple points of the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh, sparking several clashes including a hand-to-hand fight in June that claimed the lives of at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers.
Following multiple rounds of diplomatic and military negotiations, disengagement was achieved at around four friction points, resulting in the establishment of ‘buffer zones’.
However, progress on resolving the two remaining points at Depsang and Demchok had remained elusive, till last month.
On October 21, India first announced that a “patrolling agreement” had been finalised for these two last friction points. Two days later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first formal talks in five years in Kazan, Russia on the sidelines of the BRICS summit.
Since then, the foreign and defence ministers of both countries have met twice in separate engagements to advance the process of normalising ties.
Earlier on November 2, India had said that “verification patrolling” had commenced in Depsang and Demchok.
The Chinese defence ministry said on Thursday (November 28) that the “Chinese and Indian militaries are implementing the solutions reached by the two sides on border-related issues, and progress is going smoothly”.
In a written answer in Lok Sabha on Friday, Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh said for the first time on Friday that the October 21 agreement has been “effected and implemented” on the ground.
“India and China reached agreement on patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control in India-China border areas in Depsang and Demchok on 21 October 2024, leading to disengagement. It has been agreed therein that patrolling activities and, wherever applicable, grazing will resume as per longstanding practice before friction started in these areas. The agreement has since been effected and implemented as per modalities and timelines agreed,” Singh said.
The statement also clarifies that the conditions set for the resolution of earlier friction points, which included the establishment of buffer zones, remain intact.
“The terms of the agreements reached before October 21, 2024, continue to apply in the relevant areas of Eastern Ladakh,” Singh added.
At the earlier friction points, both sides had reportedly agreed to withdraw an equal distance from the area and suspend patrolling until overall de-escalation and troop withdrawal were completed.
Reacting to the orders for a judicial probe, SP MP from Faizabad Awadhesh Prasad said that it was announced to put the “matter on hold” and to “divert people’s minds.”
New Delhi: Late on Thursday (November 28), the Uttar Pradesh government ordered a judicial probe into the violence that broke out in Sambhal during a controversial survey of a Mughal-era mosque last Sunday (November 24). The decision to constitute a judicial commission came a few hours before the Supreme Court was to hear a petition by the caretakers of the Shahi Jama Masjid against a Sambhal court’s decision to order a survey in the mosque through an advocate commissioner to look for signs of an ancient Hindu temple.
While Opposition party leaders view the government’s decision to suddenly announce a judicial probe with suspicion, the terms and references of the three-member commission also raise questions as they seem to overlook the serious allegations of murder levelled against the police by the kin of those who were killed in the incident.
Uttar Pradesh governor Anandiben Patel constituted the three-member commission headed by Devendra Kumar Arora, retired judge of the Allahabad high court. Retired IAS officer Amit Mohan Prasad, who served under chief minister Adityanath, and retired IPS officer Arvind Kumar Jain, who was the director general of police in 2015, when the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP)Nwas in power, are the other two members of the commission.
Five Muslims were killed in the violence although the government has only acknowledged the deaths of four persons. Several police personnel were also injured and some vehicles torched or damaged.
The judicial commission has four tasks. One, to inquire whether the incident was “sudden or well planned and the result of a criminal conspiracy.” Two, to inquire into the arrangements made by the district administration and police for maintaining law and order during the incident. Three, to ascertain the “reasons and circumstances” due to which the incident took place. And four, to provide suggestions to prevent a repeat of such incidents. The commission has two months to complete its probe.
The commission’s notification does not make any specific reference to other important elements of the incident, which would require investigation for a comprehensive understanding of the events. First, the root of the controversy. Under what circumstances did the court-appointed advocate commissioner Ramesh Raghav display a tearing hurry and conduct a survey of the mosque on November 19 evening within three hours of the orders of a local civil court.
The civil judge senior division passed the order for a survey on an application filed by eight plaintiffs, led by pro-Hindutva lawyer Hari Shankar Jain and Hindu seer Mahant Rishiraj Giri, as part of a civil suit claiming right for access into the mosque. The Hindu activists claimed that the mosque, built during the time of the first Mughal emperor Babar in the 16th century, was originally the site of a prominent Hindu temple dedicated to the prophesied avatar of Vishnu, Kalki.
Given that the court had granted the advocate commissioner time till November 29 — at least nine full days — to submit a report, what prompted him to initiate the survey immediately after the court’s orders? Did the administration take necessary steps to take the local religious communities into confidence, given that the mosque is located in a mixed population area, or hold any peace meetings to inform the local populace about the objective of the survey? Why did the advocate commissioner conduct a second survey, given that the subject is communally-sensitive? If at all the advocate commissioner was aware of the limitations of conducting a survey under night vision, why was it initiated in a hurried manner on the same day in the first place?
Second, there are serious allegations levelled against the police. Not only are the police accused of firing and killing the protesting Muslims, who were part of a mob that pelted stones at the police personnel and damaged vehicles, but have also faced allegations that they triggered the crowd to become violent with an unwarranted lathicharge.
The kin of those killed, the chairperson of the mosque’s caretaking committee Zafar Ali and Opposition leaders including Sambhal MP Zia-ur-Rehman Barq have accused the police of firing at the mob. The police have denied these charges and maintained that they only fired rubber pellets and tear gas and used lathi-charge to disperse the crowd. The police also claimed that the four persons killed of gunshot wounds were hit by country-made weapons, suggesting that members of the mob may have shot at each other.
Civil rights NGO Association of Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed in the Allahabad high court, has demanded that all the complaints of “offences and atrocities” allegedly committed by the police or state functionaries be registered forthwith and investigated by an independent investigating agency or team under the monitoring of the high court. The APCR also pleaded in the PIL that the court direct the police and the government to file a status report explaining on that grounds were the police promoted to “open fire” on the public.
In its PIL, the APCR said that the mob was protesting peacefully against what they believed were rumours of an excavation of the mosque when the police started a lathi-charge. “After the lathi charge, the mob allegedly turned violent and started pelting stones, it is worth mentioning that the police officers indulged in use of disproportionate force by opening fire indiscriminately and that four persons namely Naim Gaji, Mohammad Bilal, Ruman Khan and Mohammad Kaif lost their lives due to bullet injury,” said the APCR’s petition.
Third, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in a bid to divert attention from the alleged police firing at the Muslims, planted a story in the media that the violence took place due to a long-standing rivalry between two Muslim communities, Turk and Pathan. It would be imperative that the commission also probe how this unfounded theory of pitting two communities against each other, promoted by large sections of the media quoting unnamed police sources, was manufactured.
Reacting to the orders for a judicial probe, SP MP from Faizabad Awadhesh Prasad said that it was announced to put the “matter on hold” and to “divert people’s minds.”
“It is an open fact that bullets were fired, people died and dozens were injured. What is so special about this that this matter should be given to a commission? This government does not want to do anything. It is the government that has spoiled things,” said Prasad.
SP MP Barq, who has been accused of instigating the mob to “safeguard” the mosque, said “an honest and impartial investigation” would be possible only with a probe commission formed under the supervision of sitting judges of the Supreme Court or the Allahabad high court. Talking to reporters outside parliament, Barq also demanded that the police officers and administrative officials who were part of the incident be suspended if any impartial probe is to take place. “We consider them criminals,” said Barq on Friday, demanding that a murder case be lodged against the police.
The SP MP has also alleged that the violence incident on November 24 was orchestrated by the police administration. “The police first triggered the chaos, and then fake cases were filed,” he said.
The administration has denied charges of negligence or a security lapse.
Moradabad divisional commissioner Aunjaneya Kumar Singh, addressing a press conference on Thursday evening, was asked if the violence was a result of an “intelligence failure” and if action would be taken against the local police personnel. Singh replied to this by saying that although the administration of “inputs” that the matter was “sensitive,” they have taken all measures to tackle it and deployed all available forces. “We used drone cameras. If there was no intelligence why would we put all these arrangements in place? Police were also deployed on roof tops,” said Singh.
The senior official said that the police gave the stone-pelting mob the “necessary appropriate response” after exhausting all forms of deterrents. “We did whatever was permissible,” he said.
Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak, speaking to the media after the orders for a judicial investigation, said the government would take “strict action” against all the culprits after an impartial probe. We will abide by the orders of the honourable Supreme Court. We will maintain law and order in Sambhal,” he said, soon after the apex court directed the administration in the west Uttar Pradesh district to maintain peace and be “totally, absolutely neutral.”
Gender activists have highlighted the low police-to-population ratio in West Bengal as a contributing factor to violence against women.
Kolkata: Swapna Biswas, a homemaker from Thakurnagar in North 24 Parganas, has been personally escorting her daughter to tuition classes daily. Previously, her daughter cycled to the tuition centre, located approximately three kilometres away. For the past three months, however, Swapna has been accompanying her daughter in a local electric rickshaw, known as a toto. She patiently waits outside for two hours before returning home with her daughter. If Swapna is unable to accompany her, her daughter skips tuition altogether.
The added precaution has come with financial strain for the family. “I am the sole breadwinner of the family. We have to spend extra money to take my daughter to tuition because my wife has to go with her. But what else can we do? We can’t risk her safety,” said Shekhar Biswas, who works in a private sector company in Kolkata.
The Biswas family’s decision to accompany their daughter to tuition was triggered by the horrifying incident at R.G. Kar Medical College, which sparked widespread protests against violence against women in West Bengal. However, these protests did little to curb the rising tide of violence.
Between August and November 2023, a staggering 42 cases of molestation, rape, and gang rape were reported across the state. These incidents range from rape and murder to dismemberment and disposal of bodies in rivers.
“This has been happening since ancient times, and it’s not just happening in West Bengal but all over the world. I believe social decay and the brutality of the male patriarchy are the reasons. We still celebrate International Women’s Day because women need protection. And in our country, such incidents are happening everywhere, from Manipur to Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh,” said Chandrima Bhattacharya, minister of state, Health and Family Welfare, West Bengal.
While police have arrested accused in many cases, there’s widespread anger due to delays in the legal process and alleged attempts to influence victims’ families to withdraw complaints. Political interference is also a major concern, with accusations against local Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders of suppressing cases and protecting the accused.
Just days earlier, on last Friday, police arrested a man believed to be a close associate of the ruling TMC from the Bankura Sadar area for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor. The victim’s family revealed that they were offered a substantial sum of money to withdraw the complaint.
“We were offered Rs 10 lakh to not press the charge, but we refused,” said the mother of the child.
Interestingly, the father of the slain doctor of the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital also alleged that senior police officials offered him a monetary settlement even before his daughter’s cremation. Families of victims have reported pressure to withdraw complaints, even after legal procedures like arrests and medical examinations. Public outrage has led to protests demanding justice and the arrest of the accused.
In October, villagers in South 24 Parganas torched a police outpost after a child’s rape and murder, accusing the police of refusing to register a complaint when the child went missing.
The state government and the ruling party have frequently used advertisements and election rallies to boast about Kolkata’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) ranking as India’s safest city for women. However, Opposition parties have disputed this claim.
A recent study published in Hindustan Times by renowned economists Maitreesh Ghatak and Tanika Chakraborty further supports this contention, highlighting a significant reporting bias in official crime statistics related to women’s safety in West Bengal. The authors have shown that the notion that Bengal is a safe place for women, based solely on NCRB data, is misleading.
“While it is difficult to pinpoint the extent of reporting bias, when we compare NFHS [National Family Health Survey] and NCRB data, it suggests a reporting bias in NCRB’s crime against women statistics in West Bengal in the last decade,” said Chakraborty, associate professor of Economics at IIM-Calcutta.
While NFHS data consistently shows West Bengal’s rate of such crimes to be near the national average, NCRB data indicates a sharp decline over time. This suggests that NCRB records in West Bengal may be underreporting crimes against women, and makes it difficult to say that crime against women has declined in West Bengal based solely on the NCRB data.
The NFHS reports on physical violence by individuals other than husbands, which should align with NCRB’s crime against women data. In 2005, Bengal’s per capita incidence of such crimes was similar to the national average in both NFHS and NCRB. However, by 2015, while the NFHS data continued to show Bengal near the national average, the NCRB data indicated a significant decrease. This gap widened further by 2021.
“Now, criminals think that they can get away with such crimes because they have powerful backers, which is a dangerous trend. There is a growing trend of lumpenisation across the country,” said former MP and women rights activist Malini Bhattacharya.
“Those in power support and empower this criminal network to maintain their power. Women are their soft targets. The atrocities against women in the state have crossed all limits. The ruling party is more focused on crime than on development,” echoed Miratun Nahar, women rights activist.
West Bengal government has been lauded at several quarters for its women-centric beneficiary schemes like ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’, ‘Kanyashree’ and ‘Sabuj Sathi’ targeted at empowerment and social inclusion. The flagship ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’ scheme provides financial assistance to 2.11 crore women aged 25-60 from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, while Kanyashree, a conditional cash transfer scheme, encourages girls to attend school and delay marriage until the legal age of 18.
Despite these efforts, violence against women has increased substantially in West Bengal. According to the NCRB 2022 report, West Bengal reported the highest number of missing women and girls among all Indian states.
“Government empowerment schemes are cash for benefit and it is obvious that these schemes are introduced on the premise of inequity faced by women. They don’t correct the inequality but take care of the monetary discrimination only,” said Ishita Mukhopadhyay, professor of Economics, University of Calcutta.
“Women politicians in our country, including the chief minister, are known to exhibit patriarchal power harping on power, money and lumpen nexus. So they increase rather than decrease Violence Against Women. The enabling environment for violence against women has been facilitated and has intensified it,” Mukhopadhyay added.
Earlier this year, many women in Sandeshkhali in South 24 Parganas, came forward to expose the sexual terror inflicted upon them by political goons affiliated with the ruling party. While the chief minister termed it a political conspiracy, records suggest that the government ignored early warnings raised long back in 2014. Since 2017, West Bengal’s rape rate has declined by a mere 0.15%, significantly lower than the national average of a 3% decrease, as per NCRB data.
“During the same period, West Bengal performed much better in handling gender-neutral crimes like murder and was much below the Indian average throughout. If we rank the 31 states for which we have the latest NCRB data (2022) from the best to the worst for rapes per capita, Bengal’s rank is 19 among 31, only before Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh among the major states. In per capita murder it is at 24,” said Chakraborty, associate professor of economics at IIM-Calcutta.
Gender activists have highlighted the low police-to-population ratio in West Bengal as a contributing factor to violence against women. With only 101.13 police personnel per lakh people, the state ranks among the lowest in India, surpassing only Bihar. The state’s civil police force also lacks female officers, with just 9,522 women compared to states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Bihar.
On a per capita basis, West Bengal ranks 35th among 28 states and eight Union Territories, with one female officer serving over 5,000 women. This understaffing and low proportion of women in the police force (9% compared to the national average of 12%) may contribute to police reluctance in filing complaints, as seen in Bankura, or initiating timely investigations, as in the case of the child’s murder in Joynagar.
“Such atrocities were happening even before the R.G. Kar incident. How many crimes have been tried? I am disturbed and shocked by the situation. Many women have fallen victim to this depravity. Now, at least, people are coming forward and protesting. That’s a glimmer of hope,” said singer Lopamudra Mitra.
Some of the recent horrific incidents include:
A deaf and mute woman being gang-raped in a tea garden in Banarhat on August 27.
A patient being molested in a Howrah hospital on September 1.
An eighth-grade student’s throat being slit inside a moving bus in Komarpur, East Burdwan, on September 17.
A student being publicly assaulted in Belgoria on October 4.
A woman being raped and poisoned in Potashpur on October 6.
A nine-year-old child being raped and murdered in Farakka on October 14.
A woman being gang-raped in front of her husband on October 30, followed by a similar incident on the Kalyani express highway the next day.
A 60-year-old woman being raped in Memari on November 3.
On November 5, an elderly woman was raped in Tarapith by two minors and an adult, while her husband was held captive. The accused even recorded the incident on their mobile phones. All three accused were arrested, with the minors being sent to a juvenile home. However, the adult accused was seen laughing and told the media that recording the video was his mistake.
T.S. Eliot was wide of the mark: time future is not contained in time past. We do stand at the still point of the turning world, though.
Yes, it was a long time ago. Indeed, a very long time.
We were kids growing up in a small town in West Bengal. The year was 1966, the month, February. There’s no mistaking the year or the month, because something happened just a few days later which has seared into the collective memory of our generation.
Our quiet little town erupted in noisy but determined student protests against the increasingly more desperate food situation across the state. Localised at first, the protests soon swelled into the historic Food Movement of 1966 which was to eject, in a few months’ time, the Congress party from power in the state for the first time.
Predictably, the police came down hard on the protestors. I happened to catch an irate policeman’s baton on my rather frail shoulder but managed to hide the bruise from my mother for a few days – until the pain and the swelling got the better of me. A schoolmate was shot shrough his leg and spent days at the hospital. Meanwhile my father, who, as always, was at the centre of all the action, got picked up by the police and whisked away to a Calcutta jail – and the situation quickly became more volatile. Even after those arrested were released, the fires smouldered for several months before they were somehow doused as election day approached.
But I am digressing. I wanted to think about what happened before the trouble started, not after. Over four or five days in early February that year, we had what then used to be called the Youth Festival (Jubo Utsab, in Bangla) – something that happened every three or four years under the auspices of the All India Youth Federation, the Communist Party of India, and probably also the All India Peace Council.
For those few days our little town looked and felt very different to its unremarkable persona we were all so familiar with. There was music, there was theatre, there were films, there was mime, there was dance, there was the occasional aerobics virtuoso laying out his wares, there were talks and seminars on war and peace, – and there were electrifying prabhat pheris (early morning processions) alive with songs and slogans.
For those few days, and for some leading up to the festival, our house buzzed with activity of every kind, for my father happened to be the chief patron, main organiser and principal ideologue, all rolled into one, to the festival. There were feverish comings and goings, animated discussions around what all was not going right, rehearsals for the ceremonial choric songs for the evening, volunteers dropping in to report which guest was expected to arrive at what hour – and even my usually unflappable mother would lose count of how many plates of breakfast she needed to rustle up in the next half-hour.
Through all of this, unburdened with any responsibility one could write home about, we kids were over the moon.
And what sublime fare awaited us in the evenings! There was the inimitable Hemanga Biswas – doyen of the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) – singing some Paul Robeson numbers one evening, first the original song and next its Bangla version, and the rapt audience lapping up every word, some joining in with gusto. ‘Old Man River’ is still ringing in my ears a full 58 years after, as is the mesmeric Lead Belly song that also he sang for us: “We are in the same boat, Brother”.
Then we had the noted Rabindra Sangeet singer Sagar Sen with his mellifluous voice and clear diction, followed by Tarun Bandopadhyay, in his day one of the leading exponents of Adhunik (‘modern’, i.e., post-Rabindranath Tagore) Bengali music, enchanting the audience with his lilting numbers.
One evening’s programme featured the peerless ‘Poet of Silence’, the mime Jogesh Dutta, whose ‘comic’ business inevitably reminded you of Chaplin, except that Jogesh’s was an entirely solo act. Unless my memory is failing me, we also had the Uday Shankar troupe (minus the great man himself, though) with one of their shadow plays (I don’t remember now which) on one of those days.
The Russian consulate in Kolkata had also been roped in to lend prints of two prized items on their collection: a film rendition (1957?) of the classic Pyotor Tchaikovsky ballet Swan Lake, and Sergei Eisenstein’s timeless epic, Battleship Potemkin. I cannot be sure if my memory of the Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin is from that first viewing or an extrapolation from some years later, but I remember that the audience were up on their feet, cheering and applauding, at the film’s cliimactic encounter between the Potemkin sailors and the Tsarist fleet. When the Tsar’s soldiers refused to deploy against their Potemkin brothers, I thought the flag fluttering atop the rebel ship looked a deeper shade of red than before.
But for me the piece de resistance of that festival was the performance by the Kolkata theatre group Nandikar, helmed at that time by the legendary thespian Ajitesh Bandopadhyay. He presented two Anton Chekhov creations (adapted into Bengali) from Nandikar’s repertoire, one-act plays, both of them, The first was Prastab (‘A Wedding Proposal’), a rip-roaring farce built around a feckless, not-so-young bachelor, a freeholder, who desperately seeks an attractive but shrewish neighbour’s hand in marriage, only to blight his own chances as he puts his foot compulsively in his mouth every time he is about to propose.
The other piece was Naana Ranger Din(‘Swan Song’), in which the forlorn figure of an old theatre actor, long past his prime and now a hopeless drunk, finds himself trapped in the theatre hall for the night as his troupe, oblivious to his presence inside the green room, fast asleep, lock the whole place up and leave. As he emerges out of his drunken stupor, the man stands alone in the dark, deserted proscenium, overwhelmed by memories of his halcyon days as a virtuoso character actor, but keenly aware that he now has reached the end of the road. He has no family, no one to go home to, for a woman he once dearly loved would be his wife only if he left the theatre and settled for a more ‘respectable’ career. Presently, he recalls some of his most stirring performances that once earned him high praise from audiences and critics, and, on an impulse, plays out some of those dazzling parts to himself once again, all by himself. In his heart of hearts, he knows he hasn’t lost his touch; that, given the chance, he can still mesmerize audiences. But, equally, he knows his time is up, for people no more have any use for his kind of talent. The wreck of his dearest dream and his fondest hope stares him in the eye. And yet, the actor draws himself up to his full, magnificent height before he storms out of the stage, defiant one last time, crying out with Shakespeare’s Richard III:
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!
Every time I think of Ajitesh Bandopadhyay in the middle of that rousing performance that distant February evening, I get goosebumps, even now.
Today, a look back at that far-away point in time gives one a sense of the enormity of the changes that have taken place since then. Our town didn’t have a direct rail link to Kolkata at that point. The road distance was a mere 60 or so kilometres, but it took buses two-and-a-half hours to cover that distance. Telephones in that pre-STD (and, of course, pre-cellular) age were few and connections overwhelmingly unreliable. And yet our little town of about 50,000 inhabitants could proudly host, over four or five days, a festival celebrating some of the finest human achievements anywhere in the world in music, films and the theatre. The festival could at best have been funded by a shoe-string budget. Most programmes were held al fresco, under the open sky, partly on the grounds of the town hall and partly on the girls’ school playground, with only a couple of seminars – I remember one focused on America’s war on Vietnam, which was turning more vicious by the day then – and probably also the Swan Lake screening, being accommodated inside our school auditorium. But all that didn’t seem to take anything away from the zest of the audience or the passion with which the many volunteers, my father’s students, many of them, embraced their labour of love.
Let me hasten to add something here, however: I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that the town I happened to grow up in was special in any way. It was not – not in the state of West Bengal in our time, at any rate. Fifty or 60 years ago, nearly every second district – or even subdivisional town in our part of the world took pride in engaging with the big, wide world outside of their own communities in their own unostentatious ways. It was not only a matter of being politically aware or alert: small-town communities also strived, albeit with limited resources, to access and savour the best products of human culture. Often, the results were not necessarily spectacular, but the bona fides of the quest were beyond doubt.
Off and on in recent years, I have journeyed back to the town of my most impressionable years. And each time I have caught myself shaking my head in despair: “Is this where I come from?”I almost wish I didn’t. But then, doesn’t the same disquiet assail me when I think of my country also today?
Anjan Basu can be reached at basuanjan52@gmail.com. His verified X handle is @basuanjan52.
Fans used to dread having to wake up in those winter mornings and open their TV with squinted eyes in the hope of a scorecard that didn’t loudly scream disgrace.
Test cricket fans in India associate a certain sense of romance with the Australian summer. The Indian team’s tours down under roughly every four years have remained among the better things to look forward to in the Test calendar. The period coincides with winter in India and the mood is set just about right for some early morning – often too early – cricket while covered in a blanket and the television volume set low. Big and beautiful grounds, lush and smooth outfields accentuated in their effect by the quality of broadcast, fast and bouncy pitches assisting the tall, menacing fast bowlers, and the electric action being called by the unmistakably familiar Channel 9 legends like Richie Benaud, Bill Lawry, and Ian Chappell.
The experience of Test cricket in Australia is so persuasively packaged and sold, it subliminally registers as superior to what you get to witness elsewhere. Add to it, the cricket community has for the longest time held Australia as the ultimate barometer of quality to measure any team against. And therefore despite the Indian team’s largely indifferent outings outside the last two, the Australia tours continue to hold a very distinct place in Indian cricket fandom.
The systemic limitations that cricketers from the relatively weaker nations had to contend with prevented the Indian teams of past from feeling at ease on tough away assignments. And therefore barring the preternaturally gifted ones like Sachin Tendulkar, the batting unit of the 90s and before looked spectacularly out of depth when dealing with extra pace and bounce on those flat and hard surfaces. With little familiarity to the conditions, the Indian fast bowlers too found it impossibly hard to adjust their lengths and in the process leaked too many runs before figuring what worked.
But as the BCCI evolved into a money-spinning beast exerting monopolistic control over the sport, the Indian players too found life much easier. The tours to the first-world countries became much more frequent. The players on these tours now had little to worry outside calibrating their techniques to suit to the conditions.
There was a time in Indian cricket when two successive tours to Australia would be too spaced out for the same group of players to even hope to feature in both let alone fix their flaws on the second. That time is of course long gone now. Money and clout have lent Indian cricketers the bandwidth to maximise their output in a way the previous generations could never even have dreamed of. And that’s certainly reflecting in the way India performs on these once dreaded tours now.
When Rishabh Pant hit the winning runs at Brisbane in early 2021 to complete a truly monumental series win down under, it signalled a complete transition in the way this rivalry would be spoken of for the years to come. A lot was said and written in the days that followed. But that victory at the Gabba pretty much confirmed that going ahead, India would start every series they played in Australia on an even footing – even a humiliating whitewash in a home series weeks before the next instalment won’t deter that bit.
Normally, a team going on one of the toughest overseas assignments right after hitting what many described as its lowest point should be deemed as a complete pushover. And you couldn’t have been faulted for thinking of this Indian side that way after witnessing its capitulation in Mumbai in the most recent Test they played.
But despite the overbearing clamouring around this team’s decline and missing a few key players including the captain Rohit Sharma going into the opening Test at Perth, nothing really screamed an imminent drubbing. A 295-run India win may not have been the safest of bets but being dismissive of their prospects is not an option India have left on the table anymore, not in Australia anyway.
It’s not like India have evolved into an untameable giant that no longer is constrained by pitches and conditions. There’s plenty of cracks that are routinely papered over by some individual piece of brilliance on every other tour. But this particular unit has very specifically cracked the Australia code like no other team in contemporary cricket has.
It’s happened on the back of coming together of relentlessly accurate fast bowlers who’ve learned the art of bowling into the pitch. Every Australian summer you could see the visiting bowlers painfully struggle to find the three-quarter length the way Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood do. But inevitably their lengths are too short for the most part before dishing out half-volleys that the hosts pounce on.
India have very smartly given up on rushing the Australian batsmen with extra bounce and instead stuck to what they know best – bowl straight and keep stumps in play at all times. For the third tour in a row, this method has delivered beyond the best of anyone’s expectations. India successfully put a chokehold on the flow of runs and force Australia into finding runs in areas they haven’t necessarily had to explore against other teams.
There’s a marked difference in how the Australian batting fares against other teams compared to how they find their scoring options severely strangulated when they play India. This is so unbelievably detached from the reality of tours as recent as 2014-15 when the Indian attack – of creditable repute – looked so woefully out of place.
Fans used to dread having to wake up in those winter mornings and open their TV with squinted eyes in the hope of a scorecard that didn’t loudly scream disgrace. For those familiar with the ignominy of the 2011-12 tour, Michael Clarke is still probably batting in some alternate universe. And Ishant Sharma is still figuring out what’s full enough without being too full.
Australia for the longest time has been associated with their inherent supremacy in the imagination of the Indian public; that you may have your moments against them but it’s a matter of time before they show up and you realise how big the gap is. There’s always been that air of inevitability around the Australian narrative with men like Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, and Glenn McGrath beaming main-character energy.
Not that the Indian team of the time was entirely unremarkable in its being but the aura of the Australians was too overwhelming to be undone. The Indian fan had taken one blow too many to see the Australian tours with anything other than an extended period of sorrow and discontentment. Even if an occasional Test result went their team’s way, it’d be overcompensated by the hosts in the ODI tri-series that followed.
The aura and grandiose of Australian cricket of course subsided with the end of that generation. And while the current one may not be perceived quite the same way but are no lesser in pedigree. The likes of Steve Smith and Pat Cummins are not your everyday cricketers; both are unqualifiedly among the greatest to have played the game in fact.
And after India’s landmark series win in 2018-19 therefore, some of those hardcoded beliefs pertaining to the ‘impossible Aussies’ ought to have changed a bit. Not a seismic one, but change nonetheless. But, that India actually managed to repeat the feat two years later fundamentally redefined this rivalry perhaps forever.
India had long attained the right of being regarded as an equal in this contest but they probably merit more now. The edge they hold over Australia deserves to be much more assertively acknowledged. Australia haven’t had a sniff at this trophy for 10 years and even their latest quest to reverse this trend has started on a losing note in Perth.
A solitary win is of course nowhere close to being an indication of a third straight away series win. India’s bowling stocks are pretty nascent this time and the shaky-looking batting may not get another chance to bat on a completely placid pitch as they did in Perth. With a superior overall pedigree for the conditions, Australia still remain favourites by a considerable margin.
But the defeat in Perth has pushed the hosts in an unfamiliar territory of having to stage a comeback to win at home. More importantly, it has once again reaffirmed that India is steadily forming a habit of winning Tests in Australia; that these wins are coming a little too regularly to be treated as headline events anymore.
Many years ago, a young Indian captain MS Dhoni had asked his dressing room to not break into rapturous celebrations upon beating Australia in an ODI match. Even white-ball wins in Australia didn’t come as cheap then as they do now. But Dhoni wanted to make a clear statement; that India no longer is overly excited at the unexpectedness of a result like this, that his team is perfectly capable of repeating it at will.
A lot of time has passed since. Many Australia tours have taken place since. But India has evolved from celebrating an odd win here and there to being a juggernaut that unlike any other team in the world, shares roughly the same odds as the hosts every time they play a Test in Australia.
It’s perhaps taken a few generations too many but it’s finally reached a point where Test matches in Australia are finally not just about the aesthetics of broadcast. There’s plenty of cricket too that’s worth beating the winter blues for. Of course Benaud, Lawry, and Chappell still calling the games wouldn’t have hurt.
Meanwhile, the MEA said that it expected the Bangladeshi legal system to deal with “cases against individuals” in a “in a just, fair and transparent manner”.
New Delhi: Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, the Hindu religious leader at the centre of a contentious sedition case in Bangladesh, remains suspended from ISKCON and was barred from having contact with minors and holding kirtans, as per a report.
The Bangla Outlook news outletreported that the international child protection office at ISKCON, which stands for the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, suspended Chinmoy Krishna in October last year and also restricted him from participating in public worship, among other things.
ISKCON child protection office director Kamalesh Krishna Das told Bangla Outlook that “due to the nature of the allegations, the suspension was necessary to facilitate the investigation”.
Das did not specify the allegations against Chinmoy Krishna, but ISKCON Bangladesh officials said at a press conference in Dhaka on Thursday (November 28) that he had been ‘expelled’ and alleged that he contravened orders to refrain from participating in the organisation’s activities after children made misconduct allegations against him, as per Prothom Alo.
The officials also said ISKCON would not bear responsibility over Chinmoy Krishna’s statements or speeches.
Progress in the investigation against Chinmoy Krishna “has been delayed by certain challenges, including his level of cooperation”, Bangla Outlook quoted Das as alleging.
On Friday, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said of Chinmoy Krishna’s arrest earlier this week that it expected the legal system in Bangladesh would deal with “cases against individuals” in a “in a just, fair and transparent manner” that respects their legal rights and those of “all those who are concerned”.
It also noted that ISKCON was a “globally well-regarded organisation with a strong record of social service”.
The MEA also registered concern “at the surge of extremist rhetoric” as well as the “increasing incidents of violence and provocation” against religious minorities in the country, adding to say that these developments could not be dismissed as “media exaggerations”.
Chinmoy Krishna was arrested in Dhaka on November 25 and ordered detained on sedition charges by a Chattogram court the next day.
His supporters gathered around the police van transporting him to jail, following which clashes erupted between them and police.
A Muslim lawyer identified as a prosecutor waskilled amid the violence.
The charges allege that Chinmoy Krishna and others last month instigated a crowd to replace a Bangladeshi flag in Chattogram hoisted on the day former premier Sheikh Hasina fled the country with a saffron-coloured one of ISKCON’s, Prothom Aloreported.
The MEA, which previously issued astatement expressing “deep concern” at his detainment – toDhaka’s chagrin – said on Friday that New Delhi had “consistently and strongly raised with the Bangladesh government the threats and targeted attacks on Hindus and other minorities”.
“Our position on the matter is clear – the interim government must live up to its responsibility of protecting all minorities,” ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at the weekly media briefing.
Its references to “media exaggerations” follow statements from the interim government in Dhaka that reports of attacks on religious minorities in Bangladesh after Hasina’s ouster were being“exaggerated” in Indian circles.
External affairs minister S. Jaishankarsaid in a written statement in parliament on Friday that the Indian government had noted reports of violence against Hindus and attacks on temples occurring in Bangladesh around the time of Hasina’s ouster as well as during Durga Puja.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s foreign ministry issued astatement on Friday “strongly condemn[ing]” theburning in effigy by Hindu protesters of interim chief adviser Muhammad Yunus outside the country’s deputy high commission in Kolkata on Thursday.
It also condemned what it said was the burning of the Bangladeshi flag at the deputy high commission.
“Although the situation seems to be in control at the moment, there is a prevailing sense of insecurity among all the members of the deputy high commission,” the Bangladeshi foreign ministry said.
The evisceration of India’s electoral system became possible because of his dishonest abuse and misuse of his powers as master of the roster.
The recent Maharashtra assembly election results were stunning. The three main parties of the defector-infested NDA government won a landslide victory with a strike rate of 76.9%, with the BJP topping with an unprecedented 89%.
The response from the losing opposition was sharp. Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader, Sanjay Raut, said this: “Former CJI [Chief Justice of India] Chandrachud is responsible for the unexpected results of the Maharashtra elections. He did not give a timely judgement on the case involving the party symbol and unconstitutional government running in the state. History will not forgive Justice Chandrachud for not giving the decision, his name will be written in black letters.”
The Congress, which managed a measly strike rate of 16%, had this to say: “The Maharashtra outcome has been brought out through a targeted conspiracy after the level playing field was disturbed in the state to defeat the Congress.”
While the Shiv Sena’s statement was specific, one wonders what the Congress was trying to convey! Neither fish nor fowl as usual! But the use of the words “targeted conspiracy” is alarming. Therein lies the tale of the mega-legacy of the recently retired CJI D.Y. Chandrachud.
The former CJI was fond of legacy-hunting and among the many legacy-postings floating around this graph is very appropriate. It says that during his tenure he “avoided election integrity cases” because they had “high political stakes”.
The fact is that because of that very reason, he went several steps forward and facilitated the evisceration of the integrity of elections by misusing/abusing his role as “master of the roster”.
This is described as the most consequential role played by the CJI as it gives them the discretionary, unchecked power of assigning cases to select benches, thereby substantially influencing the direction of the court during their tenure whether or not they are personally involved in deciding those cases.
This article would be a narrative of such a case with my personal experience.
Justice Chandrachud took over as CJI and master of the roster in November 2022. In March 2023, a PIL under Article 32 of the constitution was filed in the Supreme Court by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). It sought appropriate directions to the Election Commission (EC) to give full effect to the purport and object of the court’s directions in Subramanian Swamy v. Election Commission of India (2013) 10 SCC 500.
In this case, the court while “taking note of the advantage in the system” without insisting on any incontrovertible proof of errors/manipulation held that in order to “have fullest transparency in the system and to restore the confidence of the voters”, a “‘paper trail’ was an indispensable requirement of free and fair elections” and directed the EC to introduce the voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) in electronic voting machines (EVMs).
It is noteworthy that the term used is ‘voter’ verifiable. It is the knowledge, satisfaction and verification of the voter that is at the heart of electoral democracy and not just that of the EC, political parties or candidates. ‘Voter-verifiable’ means each voter should have the knowledge that her vote has been cast as intended, recorded as cast and counted as recorded.
Though the requirement of the voter verifying that her vote has been ‘cast as intended’ is cursorily met when the VVPAT slip is displayed for about seven seconds after she presses the button on the EVM, there is no procedure for the voter to verify that her vote has been ‘recorded as cast’ and ‘counted as recorded’, which are indispensable for voter verifiability. The EC only counts the unseen ‘electronic vote’ and not the ‘paper vote’ seen by the voter.
This is plain fraud.
Inter alia, the petition prayed for the following relief from the Supreme Court to ensure the integrity of EVMs:
Direct the EC to cross-verify in full the count in EVMs with votes that have been verifiably ‘recorded as cast’ by the voters themselves i.e. the VVPATs;
Issue direction to the EC to ensure that voters are able to verify through VVPATs that their vote has been ‘counted as recorded’.
Actually, this petition was in continuation of the Supreme Court order in writ petition (C) no. 23 of 2019, wherein the court expressed its
“reluctance to go into the issues regarding the integrity of the EVMs which have been raised at a belated stage. The petition was filed in the month of December 2018 raising various technical issues which are not possible to be gone into at this stage.”
This order was passed just before the parliament election in 2019 by the first bench of three judges comprising CJI Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjiv Khanna while disposing of the main petition N. Chandrababu Naidu v. Union of India (2019) 15 SCC 377, wherein as an ad hoc measure the court had ordered the matching of about 2% to 2.5% of EVM memory with VVPAT slips.
I was also part of this group of petitions as lead petitioner of the one filed by civil society seeking 30% matching based on the opinion given by top statistical experts.
In filing the 2023 PIL, the ADR had taken care to comply with two essential requirements. One, to give enough time (more than one year) for the Supreme Court “to go into the issues regarding the integrity of the EVMs” before the parliament election of 2024, which it could not do in 2019.
Two, the petition was backed up by a comprehensive report prepared by the Citizens’ Commission on Elections (CCE) chaired by a former Supreme Court judge titled, ‘An inquiry into India’s election system: Is the Indian EVM and VVPAT system fit for democratic elections?’, published in January 2021.
I was the coordinator of the CCE, whose expert group reviewed the functioning of EVMs primarily from the angle of their integrity and gave these important findings:
Due to the absence of end-to-end verifiability, the EVM/VVPAT system as being practiced by the EC is not verifiable and therefore unfit for democratic elections.
There must be a stringent audit of the electronic vote count before the results are declared. The audit may in some cases require a full manual counting of VVPAT slips.
The electronic voting system should be re-designed to be software and hardware independent in order to be verifiable or auditable.
The CCE had relied on the depositions and expert opinions of several national and international experts in the areas of computer hardware, software, cyber security, statistics and election management.
Among the domain knowledge holders were Ronald L. Rivest of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Alex Halderman of the University of Michigan; Poorvi L. Vora and Bhagirath Narahari of George Washington University; Philip B. Stark of the University of California, Berkeley; Vanessa Teague of the University of Melbourne; Sandeep Shukla of IIT Kanpur; Subhashis Banerjee of IIT Delhi and K.V. Subrahmanyam of the Chennai Mathematical Institute.
There can’t be a galaxy of better expertise on the subject than this.
At the time of filing this PIL, another related petition filed by ADR on the issue of serious discrepancies between the number of votes polled and the number of EVM votes counted in the 2019 general elections filed on December 13, 2019 (W.P. (C) 1382/2019) was pending.
From the contents of these two writ petitions and the report of the CCE, it was evident that the integrity of EVMs for conducting elections was in serious doubt.
The Supreme Court was morally and legally bound to take up the case in all seriousness, post it before the first bench of three judges, examine the issues expeditiously, consider the expert opinion and pronounce a judgment well before the process for the 2024 parliament election commenced.
And this was the duty and responsibility of CJI Chandrachud in his role as master of the roster!
But what actually happened was almost the opposite. Breaking all norms and conventions, the petition was listed for hearing before a single-judge bench of Justice M.R. Shah. On his retirement, the petition landed with a two-judge bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Bela M. Trivedi, and on July 17, 2023 they strongly remarked that the PIL was casting too much suspicion on the sanctity of the election process.
On the next hearing on September 6, 2023 the bench adjourned the case saying there was no urgency in the verification of EVM data against VVPAT records.
Therefore, the case dragged on with several adjournments, at which time I filed an intervening petition in my capacity as coordinator of the CCE, explaining its background, unique expertise and the key findings in the report.
The case was finally taken up and dismissed by a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, and the judgment was handed out on April 26, 2024, the day when 191 constituencies had completed the polling and 35% of the electorate had cast their votes! The CCE’s report and its expert inputs were totally ignored and the false and misleading affidavits filed by the EC were taken as gospel truth.
What is more, the Supreme Court order read more like preaching than a judgment on merits:
“[EC] maintains that the EVMs have been a huge success in ensuring free, fair and transparent elections across the nation in all elections. They restrict human intervention, checkmate electoral fraud and malpractices like stuffing and smudging of votes, and deter the errors and mischiefs faced in manual counting of ballot papers. While earlier it was apprehended that the introduction of EVMs will lead to hardship and disenfranchisement, independent studies showcase that EVMs have led to increase in voter participation.”
The judgment upheld not the integrity but the whim of the machines over the will of the people that is the foundation of democracy:
“In our considered opinion, the EVMs are simple, secure and user-friendly. The voters, candidates and their representatives, and the officials of the [EC] are aware of the nitty-gritty of the EVM system. They also check and ensure righteousness and integrity. Moreover, the incorporation of the VVPAT system fortifies the principle of vote verifiability, thereby enhancing the overall accountability of the electoral process.”
For good measure, the honourable judges condemned the paper ballots to the dog-house largely based on hearsay and the dramatic hearing in the court of CJI on the ‘fraud’ committed by a Chandigarh official while counting 15 paper-votes cast in the mayoral election:
“We must reject as foible and unsound the submission to return to the ballot paper system. The weakness of the ballot paper system is well known and documented. In the Indian context, keeping in view the vast size of the Indian electorate of nearly 97 crores, the number of candidates who contest the elections, the number of polling booths where voting is held, and the problems faced with ballot papers, we would be undoing the electoral reforms by directing reintroduction of the ballot papers.”
Perhaps the honourable judges are not aware that in India, as per the Representation of the People Act, the paper ballot is the primary mode of polling (Section 59) while the EVM is only an option (Section 61A) to be adopted according “to the circumstances of each case”.
The extreme prejudice of the Supreme Court judges in dealing with this critical matter of the survival of India’s electoral democracy is revealed from this censure issued by Justice Dipankar Datta:
“It is of immediate relevance to note that in recent years there seems to be a concerted effort to discredit, diminish and weaken the progress of this great nation on every possible frontier. Any such effort, or rather attempt, has to be nipped in the bud. No constitutional court, far less this court, would allow such attempt to succeed as long as it [the court] has a say in the matter. I have serious doubt as regards the bona fides of the petitioning association when it seeks a reversion to the old order.”
With one stroke, sincere citizens craving to establish the “integrity of EVMs” have been condemned for ‘discrediting, diminishing and weakening the progress of this great nation’. And expert opinions par excellence have been trashed.
By unilaterally upholding the ‘supremacy of EVMs’ without complying with essential democratic principles, the core of India’s election system has been eviscerated.
The bifocal provided in the judgment for a blinded voting system – keeping the symbol-loading units sealed and secured in a container along with the EVMs and checking/verifying the burnt memory/microcontroller in 5% of EVMs for any tampering or modification – have been effectively blackened by the EC in its subsequent standard operating procedures.
All these had a direct impact on the outcome of the parliament election of 2024 as brought out in the report of Voice For Democracy in July 2024. The report has flagged a cumulative hike of 4,65,46,885 (4.65 crore) votes from initial turnout figures to final turnout figures, indicating spurious injection through EVMs.
The percentage-point increase between initial turnout figures and the final turnout figures was on average 4.72% across the seven-phase poll and has led to the possible conclusion that the people’s mandate has been stolen in at least 79 constituencies across 15 states. In some states the hike was more than 12%.
The ADR also flagged significant discrepancies of 5,89,691 votes in as many as 538 constituencies between the votes cast and the votes counted in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. This overflowed into the Haryana assembly polls, wherein the BJP won a clear mandate and became a cloud-burst in the Maharashtra assembly election, wherein with a 7.83% hike after the polls got over, the BJP secured a historic strike rate of 89%.
A pattern has evolved, wherein election results are manufactured at will with the ever-compliant media standing ready to rationalise the most brazen ‘stealing of the people’s mandate’ with reams of cooked-up ‘survey reports’!
Evisceration is the act of removing the internal organs, or viscera, from a body cavity. With the way they are being conducted, this is what is happening to India’s elections and their integrity.
This evisceration, that has facilitated EC in conducting brazenly unfair elections, was made possible because of former CJI Chandrachud’s dishonest abuse and misuse of his powers as master of the roster.
The tragedy is that unless remedied and rectified by the Supreme Court itself, this horrid mega-legacy of Justice Chandrachud could sink India’s electoral democracy itself!
M.G. Devasahayam, formerly of the IAS, is coordinator, Citizens Commission on Elections.
The manufacturing sector, which accounts for over 17% of the total Gross Value Added (GVA) output, grew by just 2.2% in July-September.
New Delhi: The GDP growth rate has slumped to a seven-quarter low of 5.4% in the July-September quarter of 2024. This decline is largely attributed to sluggish growth in manufacturing and a deceleration in mining and quarrying.
The manufacturing sector, which accounts for over 17% of the total Gross Value Added (GVA) output, grew by just 2.2% in July-September, down from 7% in April-June and 14.3% in the corresponding period last year, data released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) suggested, The Indian Expressreported.
Mining and quarrying were also severely impacted by extended rainfall, resulting in a contraction of 0.1% in July-September. This is a significant decline compared to the 7.2% growth in the previous quarter and 11.1% in the year-ago period.
However, there were some bright spots in the economy. Agriculture grew 3.5% in July-September, up from 2% in the previous quarter and 1.7% in the year-ago period. The construction sector also recorded a high single-digit growth of 7.7% in Q2, although this is lower than the 10.5% growth in Q1 and 13.6% in the year-ago period.
The services sector grew slower than expected at 7.1% in Q2, down from 7.2% in Q1 and 6% in the corresponding period a year ago. Private final consumption expenditure, a key indicator of consumption demand, rose 6% to Rs 24.82 lakh crore in the July-September quarter, marking a slowdown from the 7.4% growth in the previous quarter and a significant improvement from the 2.6% growth in the same period last year.
Government final consumption expenditure expanded by 4.4% in the second quarter, rebounding from a 0.2% contraction in the first quarter, although it fell short of the 14% growth recorded in the same quarter last year.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has projected a higher GDP growth rate of 7.2% for 2024-25 and 7.1% for FY26. The Economic Survey has also projected a growth rate of 6.5-7% for the full financial year.
Congress leaders claimed that in the months leading up to the elections, a large number of voters were arbitrarily deleted from the electoral rolls.
New Delhi: The Maharashtra leadership of the Congress on Friday (November 29) submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission of India (ECI) raising concerns over alleged arbitrary deletion and addition of voters prior to the elections and a sharp increase in voter turnout figures from 5:30 pm to 11:30 pm on the day of polling.
Showing concerns over lack of “fairness and transparency” in the electoral process, Congress leaders Nana Patole, Ramesh Chennithala, and Mukul Wasnik wrote to chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar and fellow election commissioners seeking their intervention in the matter. The Congress had also alleged possible foul play on the day when Maharashtra assembly election results were declared, in which the Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP-led) Mahayuti secured over three-fourth majority.
The leaders claimed that in the months leading up to the elections, a large number of voters were arbitrarily deleted from the electoral rolls, while “roughly 10,000” voters were similarly added in every constituency.
“With this exercise of unchecked and arbitrary deletion and consequent insertion of voters, the state of Maharashtra witnessed an unprecedented increase of an estimated 47 lakh voters being added to the electoral roll from between July 2024-November 2024 (sic),” the leaders wrote in their memorandum, alleging manipulation of electoral rolls after the Lok Sabha polls.
“It is significant to note that out of the 50 assembly constituencies where there was an average increase of 50000 voters, the ruling regime and its allies secured victory from 47 of these constituencies (sic),” they said, adding that the issue was raised before the ECI in October, 2024 itself but failed to evoke a “cogent action” by the institution.
They said that their allegation was corroborated by a voter registration officer who got an FIR registered at Dharashiv cyber police station against a large number of fake voter registrations in Tuljapur assembly seat.
Maharashtra Election Puzzle
Fact One
On October 19, 2024, MVA alliance parties had written to the Election Commission of India that BJP is engaged in massive voter list fraud, which includes deletion of 10,000 votes of MVA supporters in each constituency.
The leaders also expressed their worry over the way the ECI significantly increased the figures while sharing the voter turnout.
“As per the data made available by this Hon’ble Commission, the polling percentage across the State of Maharashtra at 5:00 pm was 58.22%. The said percentage was later reported to be 65.02%. as of 11:30 pm on the same day. Further, there was another increase in the voting percentage, ultimately being reported as 66.05%, several hours prior to counting,” the memorandum said.
“It is submitted that as per the voter data provided by the Hon’ble Commission, between 5:00 pm and the close timing of polling i.e., 6:00 pm on 21.11.2024, approximately 76 Lakh votes were cast.Further, there was yet another hike of approximately 10 Lakh voters only hours prior to the counting of votes on 23.11.2o24,” it said.
The Congress leaders said that the increase in voter turnout implied that over 70 lakh voters cast their votes in the closing hour of polling, which is “implausible and unheard of in electoral history”.
“Even assuming the time taken by one individual to cast their vote is two minutes, it is impossible for this Hon’ble Commission to have even come out with the final data by 11:30 pm considering that 76 lakh voters have exercised their franchise within the last hour of polling,” they said.
They referred to the former CEC S.Y. Quraishi who had said earlier that voter turnout is recorded and updated in real time and that there was no “logical explanation” of why voter turnout figures have been increasing drastically in the last few elections.
The leaders went on to seek an “in-person” hearing with the ECI and urged it to provide a “clear response justifying the inconsistencies and the discrepancies which have been reported both prior to the elections and post elections”.
The resolution adopted at the end of the Congress Working Committee meeting said that the electoral process was being severely compromised.
New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has called for “harsh decisions” while questioning the party’s over-reliance on national leaders and national issues following its recent reverses in the recently concluded state assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana.
At the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting held on Friday (November 29) to analyse the party’s performance in state assembly elections, Kharge said that while its focus on national issues like unemployment, inflation and a nationwide caste survey were important, this does not mean that local issues are forgotten.
“We may have lost the elections, but there is no doubt that unemployment, inflation and economic inequality are the burning issues of this country. Caste census is also an important issue today. Issues like the constitution, social justice and harmony are people’s issues. But this does not mean that we should forget the important local issues in the election states,” he said at the meeting.
“It is also important to understand the different issues of the states in detail and make a concrete campaign strategy around them. How long will you contest state elections on the basis of national issues and national leaders?”
Kharge’s remarks come after the party’s defeat in the Haryana assembly elections, where the BJP defied anti-incumbency and exit poll predictions and seemingly course-corrected from its losses in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to form a third consecutive government in the state.
While the Congress in alliance with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha won the assembly elections in Jharkhand last week, it delivered its worst ever performance in Maharashtra. This despite the gains in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, where the party in alliance with the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) bested the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance.
“After the kind of results that came in favour of the MVA [Maha Vikas Aghadi] in the Lok Sabha just six months ago, the result in the legislative assembly is beyond the comprehension of even political pundits. Such results have emerged that no amount of arithmetic is unable to justify it,” said Kharge at the CWC meeting.
In Haryana, on the other hand, where the party was poised for victory due to the anti-incumbency in the state but was outperformed by the BJP due to its course-corrective measures, Kharge said that “mere atmosphere” being in favour of the party was not enough.
“Friends, the atmosphere in the elections was in our favour. But a mere favourable environment does not guarantee victory. We have to learn to convert the environment into results. What is the reason why we are not able to take advantage of the environment?” he asked.
“Recent election results also indicate that we should start our election preparations in the states at least a year in advance. Our teams should be present in the field before time. The first task should be to check the voter lists so that the votes of our party’s people remain in the list at all costs.”
While in Haryana the party’s losses were also pinned to intra-party factionalism and its failure to put its house in order, Kharge said that there was a need to remain united and take “harsh decisions”.
“Many times we become our own worst enemy. We ourselves will talk negatively and depressingly about ourselves and say that ‘we do not have a narrative’. So I ask, whose responsibility is it to create the narrative and convey it to the public?” he asked.
“After achieving encouraging results in the Lok Sabha elections, we have suffered a setback in the legislative assembly elections. That is why we have to take tough decisions,” he added.
‘Electoral process compromised’
While the Congress’s Maharashtra unit is set to launch a campaign against the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs), Kharge said that it was the Election Commission’s responsibility to “ensure free and fair elections”.
“Questions are being raised again and again as to what extent this responsibility is being fulfilled,” he said.
Addressing a press conference after the CWC meeting, Congress general secretary and Lok Sabha MP K.C. Venugopal read out the resolution adopted by the CWC in the meeting that said that in Haryana, the Congress should have formed the government in the state but didn’t.
“There have been electoral malpractices that influenced the results in the state which have been overlooked,” the resolution said.
In Maharashtra, Venugopal said that the CWC found the electoral outcome was “shocking and beyond normal understanding and appears to be a clear case of targeted manipulation”.
“The CWC believes the integrity of the entire electoral process is being severely compromised. Free and fair elections [are] a constitutional mandate that is being called into serious question by the partisan functioning of the Election Commission. Increasing sections of society are becoming frustrated and deeply apprehensive. The Congress will take these public concerns as a national movement,” the resolution read out by Venugopal said.
