>"In these days of electronic databases and easy diagnostic tools, I [E.A.S. Sarma] am surprised that the Commission, instead of promoting transparency, public accountability and integrity of the processes involved in the preparation of electoral rolls, should give an impression to the public that it is hiding something."
>"Why should the Commission provide only scanned versions, instead of digital ones to judicial institutions, political parties and the public at large? Is it to prevent the public from electronically verifying them for duplicate voter entries etc.?" >"Why should the Commission amend Rule 93 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 to exclude public access to important election papers including video recordings of the poll process ( https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/government-amends-election-rules-to-restrict-public-access-to-cctv-other-electronic-poll- <https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/government-amends-election-rules-to-restrict-public-access-to-cctv-other-electronic-poll-documents/articleshow/116535627.cms> documents/articleshow/116535627.cms <https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/government-amends-election-rules-to-restrict-public-access-to-cctv-other-electronic-poll-documents/articleshow/116535627.cms> )? Is it for keeping the public in the dark about the polling processes?" >"Is the Commission afraid of transparency? Is it afraid of public accountability?" >"Wake up, Election Commission. You may shoot one messenger; you may shoot two; but you cannot smother the sentiments of more than a billion people." ------------------------------ By: E.A.S. Sarma Published in: *Countercurrents.org* Date: August 11, 2025 Source: https://countercurrents.org/2025/08/wake-up-election-commission-to-the-harsh-reality-of-fraudulent-additions-to-voters-lists-and-toxic-exclusions/ To *Shri Gyanesh Kumar* Chief Election Commissioner *Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu* Election Commissioner *Dr Vivek Joshi* Election Commissioner Dear S/Shri Gyanesh Kumar, Sandhu and Joshi, I write this in continuation of my letter of August 8, 2025 <https://countercurrents.org/2025/08/the-election-commission-should-investigate-the-complaint-of-electoral-fraud/> . I find that the Commission, instead of introspecting on complaints from the public, has chosen to shoot the messenger, which does not augur well for eliciting public trust in its impartiality and objectivity. I find a more recent report ( https://www.reporters-collective.in/trc/5-000-dubious-voters-from-up-make-it-to-bihar-constituency ) that refers to serious errors in the draft electoral rolls of Bihar, which the Commission is presently trying to finalise. I have extracted below some distressing paragraphs of the above news report below: *“We found more than 1,000 voters from Uttar Pradesh to be illegally listed as voters on the new list of Bihar’s Valmikinagar constituency, with exactly the same details recorded in both state lists. Additionally, we have found thousands more who are listed on the new Bihar electoral list and in UP with minor alterations in their details. These add up to more than 5,000 dubious, bogus, or double voters. We detected that all of them**hold two different Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers in the two states. This is illegal and leads to fake or wrongful votes. It is illegal for a legitimate voter of the country to hold two EPIC numbers. ECI is required to generate and provide a unique EPIC number to each legitimate voter only after scrutiny of their records. **For more than 1,000 cases, we found perfect matches: Names of the voter, their ages and their listed relatives (a mandatory field in the ECI database) were exactly the same across the databases of the two states. Only, their addresses were different.* *In thousands of other cases, the voter’s name or that of the relatives had been changed by altering 1-3 letters in the spelling.In some cases, ages had been altered by 1-4 years across the two databases and the rest of the credentials matched. * *These are results of an investigation carried out by The Reporters’ Collective with the help of data analysts to check the integrity of the new Bihar draft voter list. We started with Valmikinagar, one of Bihar’s 243 assembly constituencies that are scheduled to go for elections later this year in October-November. . . .**They converted the scanned copies to data that can be read for each character in the specific Hindi font that the ECI uses.”* I would not be surprised if the Commission responds as usual and questions the credentials of the analysts, instead of examining the authenticity of their findings, to divert attention from the shortcomings in the Bihar SIR. As a Chinese proverb says, *“It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or yellow, as long as it catches mice” * Irrespective of whose analysis it is, the Commission should ponder over the findings from that analysis. In these days of electronic databases and easy diagnostic tools, I am surprised that the Commission, instead of promoting transparency, public accountability and integrity of the processes involved in the preparation of electoral rolls, should give an impression to the public that it is hiding something. Why should the Commission provide only scanned versions, instead of digital ones to judicial institutions, political parties and the public at large? Is it to prevent the public from electronically verifying them for duplicate voter entries etc.? Why should the Commission amend Rule 93 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 to exclude public access to important election papers including video recordings of the poll process ( https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/government-amends-election-rules-to-restrict-public-access-to-cctv-other-electronic-poll-documents/articleshow/116535627.cms)? Is it for keeping the public in the dark about the polling processes? Is the Commission afraid of transparency? Is it afraid of public accountability? The above investigation refers only to serious errors, deliberate or otherwise, in one Bihar constituency. If a similar analysis is to be done for other constituencies, many more skeletons may tumble out, rendering the so-called “Special Intensive Revision (SIR)” dubious. Both fake additions to Electoral Rolls and fraudulent exclusions imply a serious danger to the integrity of Bihar elections. Wake up, Election Commission. You may shoot one messenger; you may shoot two; but you cannot smother the sentiments of more than a billion people. If the Commission has any sense of public accountability, it should *suo moto* carry out an inhouse cross-verification of the ongoing Bihar SIR, place its findings in the public domain and be prepared to answer questions from the public. Failing that, you will end up making a mockery of conducting elections. I hope that the Commission starts taking such analytical reports seriously and stops treating complainants as adversaries, enemies of the nation! I hope the Commission rises above politics and conducts its affairs as an impartial apolitical authority, as it should in terms of Article 324 of the Constitution. I hope the Commission acts on behalf of more than nine million voters of our great nation. I hope the Commission acts in support of the democratic values of our Constitution. Yours sincerely, E A S Sarma Former Secretary to the Government of India Visakhapatnam
