As the long-drawn process of assembly elections in four states and one Union territory was about to draw to a close, FE?s Nistula Hebbar caught up with chief election commissioner SY Quraishi for an interview. The CEC talked about the poll process, use of money power in electioneering, paid news and why he thought that memoirs are a bad idea.
It has been a fairly peaceful poll all around. So do you feel justified holding six phases of polls for West Bengal and a month-long wait for the results for the rest?
Fairly peaceful? These polls were totally peaceful. And only the media seems to be having a problem with the long-drawn-out polls, despite the fact that we have given you enough news fodder for two months! Anyway, seriously, we are not fools to have scheduled the polls in a certain way. West Bengal needed a massive infusion of security and political parties have not questioned this and actually do not question this anymore. It is a small price to pay for a free and fair poll.
In Tamil Nadu, there was a massive crackdown on the use of money power during the elections, which got you and others in the Election Commission into a war of words with the DMK in particular. (DMK chief) M Karunanidhi likened the situation to the emergency era.
During elections, tempers are high and we take these things in our stride. Politicians are shrewd enough to know why we are doing what we are doing. It is our job to conduct free and fair polls, in order to fulfil our constitutional duty. If someone has a problem with that, then, too bad.
You?ve said earlier that it is tougher to combat money power than muscle power. In this scenario, are you in favour of state funding of elections?
Money is generally tougher to crack down on as it is more insidious and both the one who distributes and the one who receives it rarely complain. Having said that, I am not in favour of state funding of elections, since the issue is the spending of black money and not white. Here, we get the accounts from candidates and political parties of the white money they spend. When state funding happens, then too we will get an accounting done, but the aim to curb the black money might not be met. With state funding, we will only be facilitating all the money, which is now being spent in white, being turned black. So where is the use of such a system? There is only the tough road left for electoral reforms in this matter, and that is for political parties to be aware, transparent. Accept money only through cheque, publish the names of your donors so voters know if there is any post-electoral quid pro quo involved.
With regard to limits to expenditure, there is a reason why there are limits, which is to make sure that electoral politics is not the exclusive domain of the rich and anyone can fight elections. We subscribe to this logic.
During the last elections, the issue of paid news came up in a big way. What is the progress on that front?
In the assembly elections in Bihar this time, we saw 86 notices served for paid news and in most cases parties and candidates came forward to own up to the matter. We are exploring legal options and implications of ?misleading? the people by making advertorials look like news content. Having said that, we have a media monitoring committee in every district, and I am happy to say that in these elections, the cases have been negligible. Of course that could also be that in states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal political parties themselves are significant media groups in themselves. But even party-owned outlets cannot exceed expenditure limits.
After the jasmine revolution, the Egyptians had been in touch with you for the conduct of their elections. What advice did you give them?
Well, we were one of the countries the Egyptians had approached for some help and guidance and we gave presentations on the way we do things. I did tell them, however, that they should not import electronic voting machines (EVMs) from other countries. The bulwark on which a democratic society is based is the conduct of free and fair elections, imported machines will always be vulnerable to charges of rigging. Even in India, we import the chip in the machine, after which there has been a campaign that our EVMs are faulty. Why take the risk, I asked them.
Your tenure will end in 2012, and you are a man who has a wide range of interests. What are your plans?
I am in the process of writing a book on Urdu poetry for non-Urdu speakers. I?m also planning to write one on family planning and Islam as there are many myths about the subject.
Any plans for a memoir?
Not really. I am of the view that writing memoirs is never a good idea, since one has a tendency to either brag or be too self effacing while writing it.