Election Commission of India 1 A 011NAME OF THE NEWS PAPER THE PIONEER DATE:

\ \7-Jaya, CPM ask EC forhonest data operators

PIONEER NEWS SERVICECHENNAI

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Alleging that victory ofUnion Home Minister P

Chidambaram in SivagangaLok Sabha polls in 2009 to bea fraudulent one, AIADMKgeneral secretary J Jayalalithaaand CPl (M) on Wednesdayurged the ElectionCommission to appoint dataentry operators of integrityfor counting of votes.

In a letter to ChiefElectionCommissioner SY Quraishi,Jayalalithaa wrote;'""l requestthe ECl to appoint data entryoperators of integrity and alsoverify their credentials beforethey undertake the aboveassignment. I also request theEC to permit one countingagent to be present at thetime when the votes countedare entered in Form 20 tomonitor whether correctentries are made by the dataentry operators with regard tothe votes counted."

"During the counting ofvotes for the Siva gangaParliamentary Constituency,

Ithe votespolled in favouroftheAIADMK candidate RS RajaKannappan were entered infavour of Chidambaram andthe votes polled in favour ofChidambaram were enteredin favour of Raja Kannappan,"Jayalalithaa reasoned to backup her request.

Jayalalithaaprovidedvotes'entries as entered physicallybythe counting agentsand that ofthe entries made by data entryoperators to substantiate her

, arguments."The votes that werephys-

ically entered by the countingagents/counting officers ofRaja Kannappan were deliber-atelychangedby the data entryoperators at the time of mak-ing entries in Form 20;' shealleged,and went on to add, "A

. comparison of the hand writ-ten entries made by the count-ing agents of Kannappan andentries made by the data entryoperators in Form 20 clearly

.• reveal that the votes polled infavour of Kannappan wereentered with mala fide inten-tion •to favour the Congresscandidate Chidambaram and

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'THE VOTES THATWERE PHYSICALLYENTERED BY THECOUNTINGOFFICERS OF RAJAKANNAPPAN WEREDELIBERATELYCHANGED BY THEDATA ENTRYOPERATORS AT THETIME OF MAKINGENTRIES'facilitate his fraudulentvictory:'

She charged that thealleged irregularities commit-ted by the data entry operatorswere done at the behest of theDMK Government and noaction was taken on that, whilea petition challengingChidambaram's victory waspending in the MadrasHigh Court.

Urging the ElectionCommission to monitor thedata entry operators, the CPl(M) central committee mem-ber and Rajya Sabha MP TKRangarajan said that it wouldtake preventive steps to"Sivaganga model countingmystery" "In Sivaganga,whereHome Minister PChidambaram made a myste-rious victory, we understandthat the data entry operators,who are the people at the finallink of the total process, arelured into manipulating thecompilation ofvotes while tal-lying to arrive at the final fig-ures. Weapprehend the cross-entry of votes polled by theOpposition candidates infavour of the ruling party bysomedata entry operatorswithmala fide intent being attempt-ed," alleged Rangarajan.

"Additionally, we requestthat the observers ought to besensitised to these develop-ments and are advised to keepa watchful eye on the dataentry tables to prevent theSivagangangamodel victory ofChidamabaram," added theCPl(M) leader.

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;fWe~CtBengal awaits results if ~with bated breath'

Election Commission can take creditfor having seen a largely peaceful pollMarcus Dam'

• KOLKATA: Now that the dusthas settled on what was.one ofthe most fiercely fought As- 'sembly elections in the State,West Bengal awaits its politi-cal destiny with bated breath.May 13seems to be an agonis-ingly long time away.

Last-minute reappraisalsare being made in differentpolitical camps of feedbackreceived from party workersat the grass roots on the pos-sible outcome in their respec-tive areas, even as leaderspore over the data filtering in.Given the closeness of thecontests in several constitu-encies, the imponderables attimes appear overwhelming.

The Election Commissionhas reasons to pat itself on theback for having seen ~ largely

peaceful poll, drawn out overan unprecedented six phases.and stretching over morethan three weeks, through.There was even a special wordof congratulations from theChief Election Commissionerto the State's Chief ElectoralOfficer for the smooth con- Iduct of a poll that had all theforebodings of being a trou-blesome exercise, given thepolitical violence in the pre-ceding months, not to men-tion the high stakes involved.

Focus of discourseAnd then there have been

the much-anticipated 'exitpolls whose predictions nowdominate discourse not justin political circles but also be-yond. The responses are pre-dictable; drawing cheers andsneers, depending on which

• Exit poll predictions dominate discourse not justIn political circles ,but also beyond

• Pollsters have been often proved wrong, says-Biman Bose

side one is on.With nearly all pollsters

predicting a sweep for theTrinamool Congress-Con-gress alliance, a sense ofsmugness seems to have set in

. in the leadership of both theparties that now believe thatthe "winds of change" per-ceived as having started blow-ing across the State with therural polls in May 2008 didfinally develop into a "tsuna-mi" as Trinamool chief Ma-mata Banerjee has describedit in her own inimitable style.

The Left Front leadership,particularly that of the Com-munist Party of India (Marx-ist), is, however, not overlyworried, no matter how grimthe exit polls assessments are.

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CPI(M) State secretary Bi-man Bose has been quick torespond - not just describingthem as "bogus" but alsoquite correctly pointing outthe pollsters have often beenproved wrong; at times bysuch high percentage pointswhich might not only' havecaused them embarrassmentbut also raised questions onthe methodologies applied.The last time the TrinamoolCongress-Congress fought an

.Assernbly poll together - in2001 - the forecasts of mostof the exit polls were way offthe mark.

Talk of the "anti-incum-bency" factor is not new in aState that has seen no changein government for nearly 34

years now, even though itmay have gained currencyover the past term. Nor canthe high voter turnout in theelection; where the averagewas not much more than thatin the last Assembly polls, beconstrued as a definitive in-dicator, as has often been thecase in other parts of thecountry.

"Winds of change"The question that will be

answered when the electron- ;/ic voting machines are un- 'locked, come Friday, iswhether the Left Front has,since the last of the succes-sive electoral reversals it suf-fered over the past threeyears, been able to makeenough of a turnaround infortunes not just to success-fully fend' off the "winds ofchange," but also whether ornot the image of "resurgence"it has been projecting for it-self has finally held good inthe public mind.

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Election Commission of India 1 2 MAY2011NAME OF TIlE NEWS PAPER DATE:

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Election Commissiori of IndiaNAME o---m: NEWS PAPER, THE ECONOMIC TIMES DATE: II 2 MAYan

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~C Seizes Maximum Cash in TNOUR POLITICAL BUREAUNEW DELHITamil Nadu accounted for over80% of the ~74.27·crore cash theElection Commission seizedfrom four states during the just-concluded assembly polls.Even though EC refused to di-

vulge party-wise break-up of the~60.10 crore seized from TamilNadu, it acknowledged that theseizures could be the tip of theiceberg as far as election spend-ing by the major political partiesin the state was concerned.EC, with the co-operation of the

Central Board of Direct Taxes,seized ~8.35crore from West Ben-gal, ~5.20 crore from Assam and~62 lakh from Kerala. There wasno cash seizure from the UnionTerritory of Puducherry; whichtoo went to the polls.The assembly poll in five states

saw an across-the-board increasein voter turnout, with West Ben-gal and Tamil Nadu recording thehighest polling percentage inelectoral history.Puducherry reported the high-

est turnout at 85.57%, and West

Bengal saw an over 3% increasein polling percentage at 84.46%.Kerala saw the turnout improvefrom 72.38% to 75.12% and Assam

from 75.77% to76.04%.This was the first election where

overseas Indians could vote ifthey were registered and turned

up at polling booths.Of 8,820registered overseas vot-

ers from Kerala, 4,369 voted. Oneof these voters also contested theelection from Thodupuzha ofIdukki district.In Kerala and Puducherry; EC

for the first time held voting ex-clusively on the EPIC or the voterslip issued by it for those withoutvoter l-cards. According to £§£.SYQuraishi, this could be done asthere was 100% EPIC coverage inthese two states.The "completely peaceful, inci-

dent-free elections," were madepossible by nearly 7.4lakh pollingpersonnel and 6.36 lakh securitypersonneLAccording to Quraishi, induce-

ment of voters through distribu-tion of money in cash and kind,paid news, voter apathy amongyouth and urban educated and se-curity arrangement in Naxal-hitareas were major challenges en-countered in these elections.The EC expressed satisfaction

that there were no appeals oncommunal or caste lines, provoc-ative speeches or serious hatespeeches this time.

·••.i Election Commission of India '.. ; ft' .'

NA. ..OF nm ~ PAPER THE ASIAN AGE DATE:

'Level playingfield for partiessans channels'AGE CORRESPONDENT

NEWDEL~I

May 11: The EC onWednesday said that it isworking on guidelines forthe electronic media toensure a level playing fieldfor political parties thatown television channelsand those that cannot boastof having one.

Addressing a press con-ference here, Chief Elec-tion Commissioner S.Y.Quraishi, flanked by theother two commissioners,Mr V.S. Sampath and MrH.S. Brahma, said, "Insome of the states whichwent to polls, most of thechannels are owned bypolitical parties."

Noting that parties that 1have channels of their ownwould change the complex-ion of the game, the CECsaid that the EC was exam-ining on how to go abous-evolving a policy on it. He'Said, "We also examiningwhether using your ownchannel for unlimited pub-licity, how to account for

~xpenses." /

~12 MAY 2011-+

Election Commissiori of India

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'ECNormsfor PartyChannels Soon

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OUR POLITICAL BUREAUNEW DELHIThe Election Commission is for-mulating guidelines to accountfor campaigning carried out bypolitical parties through televi-sion channels owned and operat-ed by their affiliates.

Conflrrnmg that the EC wasconcerned over political entitiesusing party channels to generateunlimited publicity for them-selves and their candidates dur-ing polls. CEC SY Quraishi saidthe commission was now exam-ining how to account for the ex-penses made on such publicity.Election Commission VS Sam-

path said EC was holding inten-sive consultations to draw upguidelines for monitoring chan-nels owned by individuals orfirms affiliated to political par-ties. As part of its efforts to curbillegal money power in polls, ECis also holding consultationsover a proposal to introduce au-dit of accounts of political par-ties and bring contributionsfrom individuals and business-es, in public domain.

Guidelines on monitoring ofnews channels owned by politi-cal families and their aides, ac-cording to an EC source, wouldfocus on accounting for expensesincurred on publicity for the po-litical party running the channelor its candidates during polls.The EC's decision to monitor

party-run channels comes aftercomplaints of misuse of newschannels in Tamil Nadu and Ker-ala to woo voters.

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10Some measures considered are

to divide the cost of runningt~ese channels in election expen-diture of all candidates of theparty supported by the channel.In case, individual candidatesare promoted, the cost of thatcampaign will be automaticallyadde~ to the expenditure of the~dIdate. Candidates and par-ties have an upper spending limitas per EC guidelines.As per officials, a committee will

~e entrusted the job of monitor-mg that TV channels implementthe new guidelines. It will hearcomplaints and issue notices tothe ne~~ channels. Even thoughI&B ministry guidelines prohibita party to run a TV news channel "the~ is no ban on persons with \polittcal affiliations to run themTherefore all news channels saidto be of political parties are own-ed by individuals.For instance, Tamil Nadu

which has the maximum num:ber o.f such channels, includingK~aIgnar'TV owned bY'DMKchief K Karunanidhi's familymembers and Jaya TV owned byJayalalithaa herself.

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Election Commission of IndiaN~OF THE NEWS PAPER DATE: 1 2 MAY 20nTHE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

INTERVIEW: 5 Y QURAISHI,.CHIEF ELECTION COMMISSIONER

State funding of polls maynot curb use of black money

As the long-drawn process of as-sembivelections infour states andone Union territory was about todraw to a close, FE's NistulaHebbar caught up with chief elec-tion commissioner SY Quraishi

for an interview. The CEC talkedabout thepoll process, use of mon-ey power in electioneering, paidnews and why he thought thatmemoirs are a bad idea.

It has been a fairly peacefulpoll all around. So do you feeljustified holding six phases ofpolls for West Bengal and amonth-long wait for the reosults for the rest?

Fairly peaceful? These pollswere totally peaceful. And only themedia seems to be having a prob-lem with the long-drawn-out polls,despite the fact that we have givenyou enough news fodder for twomonths! Anyway,seriously, wearenot fools to have scheduled thepolls in a certain way.WestBengalneeded a massive infusion of secu-rity and political parties have notquestioned this and actually donotquestion this anymore. It isasmallprice topay for a free and fair poll.

InTamilNadu,therewasamas-sive crackdown on the use of mon-ey power during the elections,which got you and others in the

Election Commission into a war ofwords with the DMKin particular.(DMK chief) M Karunanidhilikened the situation to the emer-gencyera.

During elections, tempers arehigh and we take these things inour stride. Politicians are shrewdenough to know why we are doingwhat we are doing. It is our job toconduct free and fair polls, in or-der to fulfil our constitutional du-ty If someone has a problem withthat, then, too bad.

You've said earlier that it istougher to combat money pow-er than muscle power. In thisscenario, are you in favour ofstate funding of elections?

Money is generally tougher tocrack down on as it is more insidi-ous and both the one who distrib-utes and the one who receives itrarely complain. Having said that,I am not in favour of state fundingof elections, since the issue is thespending of black money and notwhite. Here, we get the accountsfrom candidates and political par-ties of the white money theyspend. When state funding hap-pens, then too we will get an ac-counting done, but the aim to curbthe black money might not be met.With state funding, wewill only be

facilitating all the money,which isnow being spent in white, beingturned black. So where is the useof such a system? There is only thetough road left for electoral re-forms in this matter, and that is forpolitical parties tobeaware, trans-parent. Accept money onlythrough cheque, publish thenames of your donors so votersknow if there is any post-electoralquid pro quo involved.

With regard to limits to expen-diture, there is a reason why thereare limits, which is to make surethat electoral politics is not the ex-

.~--~~...~"=" Election Commission of IndiaNMJPOFTHENEWSPAPER THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS DATE: ~1

elusive domain of the rich andanyone can fight elections, Wesubscribe to this logic.,

During the last elections, the is-sue of paid news came up in abig way.What is the progress onthat front?

In the assembly elections inBihar this time, we saw 86 no-tices served for paid news and inmost cases parties and candi-dates came forward to own up tothe matter. We are exploring le-gal options and implications of"misleading" the people by mak-ing advertorials look like newscontent. Having said that, wehave a media monitoring com-mittee in every district, and I amhappy to say that in these elec-tions, the cases have been negli-gible. Of course that could alsobe that in states like Tamil Nadu,Keralaand West Bengal politicalparties themselves are signifi-cant media groups in them-selves. But even party-ownedoutlets cannot exceed expendi-ture limits.

After the jasmine revolution,the Egyptians had been intouch with you for the conductof their elections. What advicedid you give them?

Well,we were one of the coun-tries the Egyptians had ap-proached for some help and guid-ance and wegavepresentations onthe way we do things, I did tellthem, however, that they shouldnot import electronic voting ma-chines (EVMs) from other coun-tries. The bulwark on which a de-mocratic society is based is theconduct of free and fair elections,imported machines will always bevulnerable to charges of rigging.Even in India, we import the chipin the machine, after which therehas been a campaign that ourEVMs are faulty. Why take therisk, I asked them.

Your tenure will end in 2012,and you are a man who has awide range of interests. Whatare your plans?

I am in the process of writing abook on Urdu poetry for non-Urduspeakers. I'm also planning towrite one on family planning andIslam as there are many mythsabout the subject.

Any plans for a memoir?Not really. I am of the view that

writing memoirs is never a goodidea, since one has a tendency toeither brag or be too self effacingwhile writing it.