CPI(M) Note to the Election Commission of India

A CPI(M) delegation consisting of General Secretary M.A. Baby, Polit Bureau Member Nilotpal Basu and Central Secretariat Member Muralidharan met the three member Election Commission of India today. The Note submitted to the ECI is being released to the media. The meeting was held at the initiative of the ECI.

(Muralidharan)
For CPI(M) Central Committee Office
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CPI(M)’s Submissions to the  Election Commission of India
May 10, 2025

The initiative taken by the Election Commission of India to invite recognised political parties for discussions is welcome. We hope this engagement and consultations with political parties will become a regular exercise.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has been raising several pertinent issues concerning the conduct of elections as also the larger question of safeguarding and deepening democracy, for quite some time now. The submissions hereunder are more or less reiterations of what we have been expressing, particularly, during the course of the past few years.

Even while we do appreciate the constraints of the ECI in as far as its jurisdiction is concerned, we also expect that it will exercise its powers and authority to positively influence policies to the extent possible. Therefore, we are taking the liberty of also bringing the larger issues to the fore for discussions.

Electoral reforms, the CPI(M) understands, should be comprehensive and address concerns about EVMs, electoral funding, corruption, corporate control, partial proportional representation, non-partisan and independent nature of the election agencies, role of media etc.

Partial Proportional Representation

The first-past-the-post system, is proving to be increasingly outmoded in reflecting popular opinion with increasing disconnect between popular votes polled by political parties and the number of seats they secure in legislatures.

Experience shows that in most of the elections conducted of late, there is a huge disparity in the ratio of vote share and seat share. There are instances galore where parties enjoying significant vote share fail to get a proportionate share of seats and parties with lesser vote share getting more seats.

In 2014 for the first time a party, the BJP, with a vote share of just 31 per cent won more than half the number of seats in the Lok Sabha elections. As opposed to it, the Congress with 19.3 per cent votes got just 44 seats. In the 2024 LS elections, the BJP secured 240 seats with 36.56 per cent votes, while the Congress with a mere increase of 1.89 per cent won an additional 55 seats as compared to 2014.

If we look at some states:

In Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 LS elections, the BSP got 9.39 per cent of votes but did not win a single seat, while the Congress with 9.46 won 6 seats.

In Odisha, the BJP with 45.34 per cent won 20 seats while the BJD with 37.53 per cent did not win a single seat. The Congress with 12.52 per cent won only 1 seat.

In Andhra Pradesh, the YSRCP polling 39.61 per cent could win only 4 seats while the TDP polling less at 37.79 per cent won four times more seats (16).

In Delhi, while the BJP won all the 7 seats polling 54.35 per cent, the AAP with 24.17 and INC with 18.91 percent failed to open their account.

In the 2024 assembly elections, in Andhra Pradesh the YSRCP with 39.37 per cent was confined to 11 seats while the TDP with roughly 6 additional percentage points won 135 seats. The BJP with a mere 2.83 per cent got 8 seats. In Odisha, though the BJD polled slightly more than the BJP, the seat share shows a picture in sharp contrast. While it could win only 51 seats the BJP got 78.

We are sure these instances would suffice to underline this point.

It is also apparent that smaller parties who have a broad base across constituencies may fail to win even a single seat even if their vote share is significant. There is also the possibility of a dramatic alteration in the number of seats if there is even a slight change in vote share.

It is in an effort to set right these anomalies and the distortion of people’s mandate to some extent that we have been advocating for proportional representation with a partial list system.

In this context, we may refer to one of the recommendations made by the Law Commission earlier. It had suggested that while the existing 543 seats of the Lok Sabha continue to be filled through direct elections, the number of seats in the lower house be increased by an additional 25 per cent which can be filled by proportional representation following the list system.  A similar expansion should take place in the state assemblies as well. This can be tried in the first phase; subsequently the share of seats in the proportional representation system can be expanded.

There are many issues and concerns that arise out of the proposed delimitation exercise and the manner in which it is sought to be enforced, which we are not going into here.

Opposition to Simultaneous Elections

The CPI(M) is  opposed to the `One Nation, One Election’  (ONOE) concept, which we strongly feel is aimed towards the creation of a centralized unitarian State.

The ONOE proposal amounts to truncating the life of some legislative assemblies to align them with the Lok Sabha election. Further, if a state government falls and the assembly is to be dissolved, then the mid-term election held will be only for the remaining term of the assembly.

The ONOE model undermines two basic features of the Constitution – democracy and federalism. The Supreme Court in the Kesavananda Bharati case, was categorical that Parliament does not have the power to alter the basic structure of the Constitution.

On Election Promises

The Supreme Court in the Shashanka J. Sreedhara v. B.Z. Zameer Ahmed Khan case while rejecting the argument that promises made by a political party in its manifesto, which result in direct or indirect financial aid to the public, should be considered a corrupt practice, observed that political parties must specify the sources from which they will meet the budgetary expenses for their manifesto promises.

On the surface though it may seem to underscore the importance of transparency and accountability in the electoral process, it in fact strikes against the right of political parties to freely express their policies, programmes and promises to the people.   Any infringement on the right of expression by intervention by any authority, body or agency will cut at the root of the political party system and free and fair elections.

We have earlier also expressed our opposition to the enactment of any law for this purpose. These are already provided for in the `General Conduct’ part of the `Model Code of Conduct for the Guidance of Political Parties and Candidates’.

Role of Money Power

An equally important issue is of the increasing influence of money in determining the outcome of elections. It is a matter of grave concern that increasingly people with more money at their disposal are taking their seats in elected bodies that determine policies and the future of the people. According to a report of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) a whopping 93 per cent of the winning candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections are “crorepatis”!

Money power is disturbing the level-playing field and vitiating the whole process of free and fair elections which is the essential feature of a democratic polity.  It is evident that financial superiority translates into electoral advantage and so parties and candidates who have better financial resources have a greater chance of winning elections.  There is widespread prevalence of black money, bribery and quid-pro-quo benefits which helps such candidates fund their campaign.

The Law Commission of India’s Report on Electoral Reforms was scathing while noting: “Unregulated, or under-regulated, election financing leads to two types of capture: the first involves cases where the industry/private entities use money to ensure less stringent regulation, and the money used to finance elections eventually leads to favourable policies.  The second involves cases of ‘deeper capture’, where through their disproportionate and self-serving influence; corporations capture not just regulators, but also the views of ordinary citizens and what they think of as ‘public interest’.”

The Supreme Court, in February 2024, while holding the Electoral Bond scheme unconstitutional held that the scheme is “manifestly arbitrary” because unlimited funding can result in the “unrestrained influence of companies on the electoral process” and that it violates the principle of free and fair elections. It also ruled that the scheme is not “fool proof” and creates a quid pro quo arrangement where the contributor may have enhanced “access to legislators” which may “translate into influence over policy-making.”

State Funding

In many countries, the role of big money in elections and the associated incidents of bribery, capture, lobbying and institutional corruption has been sought to be reduced through public funding or State funding of elections.

In Germany, for example, there is state funding of parties, from a corpus which is apportioned on the basis of seats and vote-share of the parties in the Centre and state legislatures in the previous elections. Apart from this, indirect subsidies like ensuring time on television news proportionately and fairly, across political parties are also given.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) stands for partial State funding of elections as recommended by the Dinesh Goswami and Indrajit Gupta Committees’.  Partial State funding in kind will provide a “financial floor” to parties and candidates.

Revise Ceiling on Expenditure by Political Parties

Connected to this is the question of absence of any ceiling on expenses incurred by a political party.

Whereas Section 77 of the Representation of the People Act imposes a ceiling on the election expenses of candidates, there is no such limit for the expenditure that a political party may incur for general party propaganda and not for any particular candidate.  As long as there is no ceiling on a party’s expenditure during elections, the ceiling fixed for candidates is meaningless. Appropriate amendments in the Representation of the People Act should be made to fix a limit on the expenditure incurred by political parties as in the case of UK and some other countries.

Further, another shortcoming of Section 77 of the Representation of the People Act is that it imposes a ceiling on election expenditure of a candidate only from the date of nomination to the date of declaration of results. However, the actual timeline for incurring the expenditure is much longer. Appropriate amendments have to be made to correct this anomaly.

Under the pretext of threat perception and security certain high ranking VIPs are permitted the use of state owned aircraft and other modes of transportation, free of cost. This gives then an undue advantage over their opponents.

Role of the Media

It is obvious that cartels and oligarchies in media ownership help ruling parties. This is more specifically pronounced in the post-2014 scenario in India. This adversely impacts holding of free and fair polls. There are also instances of witch-hunting and character assassination of political parties and candidates.  Appropriate regulatory mechanisms are necessary in this sphere including for social media, which plays a much more influential role nowadays.

After the opening of airwaves to the private sector, it is the private media that dominates the news space. It would therefore be appropriate if recognized political parties are allotted time on private media channels for placing their views to ensure non-partisan coverage and ensuring a level playing field for all parties.

EVMs & VVPATs

The CPI(M) has in the past, supported EVMs and also favoured introduction of VVPATs in the midst of increasing doubts in public perception about the vulnerability of EVMs.  Doubts still persist among sections of the public.

As per the current sequence in which the machines are placed: first is the ballot unit, followed by the VVAPT and last in the sequence is the Control Unit. Once a voter exercises their franchise, their choice is displayed in the VVAPT. But there are doubts over whether it is their choice that is actually recorded in the Control Unit. We and many others also have been suggesting that the VVAPT should be placed at the end after the control unit. This would clear doubts that exist about the integrity of the process.

This is important because the introduction of the VVPAT has added a crucial and unique vulnerability to the system. In the pre-VVPAT days, the biggest defence of the sacrosanct nature of the EVM was on the ground that the chip in the EVM machine was unaware of the names and symbols of the candidates before it was placed for verification. VVPAT has changed all this and introduces the element of prior knowledge of the precise information about names of candidates, their respective symbols and the order of the names that appears on the Ballot Unit. In terms of actual operation, other factual evidence has shown that the introduction of the names, symbols and order on the Ballot Unit is interlinked with the operation of the VVPAT with the involvement of private agencies. Therefore, if the VVPAT is manipulated and is subsequently connected to the Control Unit, it is possible that the manipulation is reflected in recording the vote. In this light, we would suggest:

a)   Re-working of the sequence of placement of the three units, ensuring that the voters’ choice exercised in the Ballot Unit goes into the Control Unit of the EVM where it is recorded and then routed to the VVPAT.
b)   A hundred percent matching of VVPAT output with the EVM recorded data for each booth.
c)  Reframe guidelines to ensure that adequate safeguards are put in place and private vendors are eliminated from any design, manufacturing, maintenance and repairing activities related to the operation of EVM and VVPAT.

Discrepancy in Polling Data

There have been allegations of discrepancies with regard to polling data. The delay on the part of the ECI to update figures on its website on time has contributed to this in no small measure. After the first phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha election it took 11 days for the ECI to update this data on its website and four days in the second phase. Suspicions get stronger when there is a discrepancy between the initial data released at the end of polling and the final data released after delay of a number of days.

The ECI had tentatively estimated that around 60 per cent of the registered voters had exercised their franchise in the first and second phases of the election as of 7.00 p.m. at the end of the polling on April 19 and April 26 respectively. In the final data that it uploaded on April 30, the figures touched 66.14 and 66.71 per cent respectively.

While it is nobody’s contention that some variation is not possible, it would in the fitness of things if rules can be amended to facilitate the uploading of Part 1 of form 17C on the ECI website, immediately after the conclusion of polling in a constituency. Also once the results are announced Part 2 may also be uploaded. Giving exact figures instead of percentages would be advisable to put to rest any doubts regarding the same.

In this connection, aspersions were also cast over the disproportionate surge in the number of voters in Maharashtra in a period of less than six months. When elections to the state assembly were held in November 2024 the number of registered voters was 9,77,93,350 whereas during the General Elections held earlier it was 9,28,90,445.

Model Code of Conduct

Non-enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct and the advisories issued by the ECI from time to time has been a matter of concern. It was reported that during the course of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the ECI received thousands of complaints through its cVigil app.

Complaints that pertained to illegal hoardings, banners, distribution of liquor, gifts etc., which were more or less addressed. Where the ECI was seen faltering is on the question of its inability of restraining or punishing those political parties and leaders who were making appeals based on religion and caste as also the misuse of places of worship for campaign and propaganda.

What starkly stood out was the initial refusal of the Commission to even take cognisance of the multiple complaints lodged against Prime Minister Modi for his blatantly communal campaign despite its own advisory about plummeting levels of public discourse.

There have been several instances of the misuse of office by the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and others during the course of elections. National symbols are also being blatantly misused for partisan purposes. Surely, one will witness the spectacle of the exploitation of ‘operation sindoor’ for electoral gains by the ruling party.

Timely enforcement of the MCC has to be ensured to restore the credibility of the ECI. The ECI should not only be impartial, but should  also be seen as such by political parties and the public at large.

Criminal Antecedents

That the Supreme Court directed disclosure of “criminal antecedents” by contesting candidates has failed to influence people’s choices is evident. What it has led to is escalation in the expenditure incurred by both candidates and political parties. For the CPI(M) much of this disclosure is for cases filed on account of their political activities and have nothing to do with serious crimes. For parties like us and others with inadequate funds at their disposal it has become a big burden, more so when this disclosure has to be made in multiple mediums and several times.

This only helps media houses, who resort to “surge pricing” during elections to enrich themselves.

According to the ADR, out of the 543 winning candidates, 251 (46 per cent) have declared criminal cases against themselves. Of these 170 (31 per cent) have been booked for serious crimes like rape, murder, kidnapping etc.

It is evident that the Court’s intention of informing the voters is misplaced. The choice of a voter is not because of their lack of information. The reasons for their choosing those accused of murder, rape or other serious offences lie elsewhere.
Given this background, the ECI should file a review petition before the Supreme Court seeking revision of its order in the light of the experience gained since then.

Reforming the ECI

The CPI(M) believes that the independence and autonomy of the Election Commission is a key to strengthen its role as an independent Constitutional body. It is in keeping with this understanding that the Party welcomed the Supreme Court verdict of 2023. A Constitution Bench, in its judgment, said that the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commissioners should be appointed by a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India.

However, this verdict of the apex court was undermined by the government by passing a legislation, by which the Chief Justice of India was replaced by “a Union Cabinet Minister to be nominated by the Prime Minister”.  This ensures that the majority opinion of the Executive will always prevail.  This, we strongly believe, destroys the impartiality and the independence of the Election Commission.

The independence and autonomy of the ECI will have to be tempered with the need for its accountability. There were concerns over its conduct of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and erosion of its non-partisan credibility. This has become so pronounced that even some of the former Chief Election Commissioners have openly expressed their concern.

This needs to be addressed and rectified.

M.A Baby, General Secretary
Nilotpal Basu, Member, Polit Bureau
Muralidharan, Member, Central Secretariat