“We (EC) factored in fake news, fake narratives between parties to create arguments … and we contained them. We had even braced our systems against likely false narratives from foreign soil, only to face these from within. We concede that EC failed to stop the mischievous narratives. While I had warned in March that there will be conspiracy balloons in these polls, we never imagined these would burst on EC’s head,” Kumar said at a press conference here.
Pointing to the opposition’s attacks on EC through the polls, the CEC joked that “you may see memes on social media that the Laapata Gentlemen are back”. “But we were always there. We just chose to interact with you (media) through our press notes,” he said.
Such allegations have potential to spark anarchy, says CEC
CEC Kumar termed ‘mischievous narratives’ as the fifth ‘M’ in addition to the four Ms listed as poll challenges by him in March 2024 — namely money power, muscle power, model code violations and misinformation. He said while the opposition and all stakeholders had a right to raise questions, any allegation or doubts must be backed by proof so as to not create doubts in the minds of voters regarding the sanctity of the electoral processes and offer EC an opportunity to rectify the errors.
“One of the learnings from the current polls is that we should be far more prepared for such fake narratives from within,” Kumar added.
The CEC said some of the electoral processes challenged during the current election were pending before courts since 2019, with poll panel having filed affidavits detailing its stance, but were taken up just before polling. Even the issue of change in rule on postal ballots came up just ahead of counting, when the new rule was neither challenged in 2019 nor during the 2021-22 state polls held thereafter. This pointed to a pattern of setting a false narrative only during the general election, he added.
“Four days before polling, there was an allegation regarding errors in the voters list. A case was filed and we spent 15 days preparing our affidavit. Tell us during non-election time where the errors are. There can be 2-4% errors but tell us where these are 94-98%. Such allegations come when elections are imminent… create a spark so that there is some scope for mischief. After polls began, EVMs were challenged. Such allegations had the potential to spark anarchy at the national level,” he said.
Stating that the case was pending since 2023 and that the poll panel had filed a reply, Kumar said it was suddenly taken up four days before Phase I. He said a similar pattern was seen in 2019, with a case having come up four days before the first phase. “Between 2019 and 2024, you should have raised this matter before us. We could have taken some action. There is a pattern, design (to raise issues) only during a general election, though I am not hinting at a toolkit,” he said.
On the allegation regarding delay and manipulation of voter turnout, he said, “We did not delay turnout data even by one day and nor can voter turnout be ramped up by even 1%. Voter Turnout app is updated in real time… the public and EC see the same figures,” he added.