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New Delhi: Twenty three opposition parties including those outside the INDIA bloc – the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and one independent MP – have written a joint letter to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and alleged that the electoral processes are being “manipulated” and “outcomes in multiple instances do not reflect the will of the people.”

The letter says that judges do not live in “ivory towers” and are aware of what is happening on the ground. The opposition leaders have urged institutions to function and said that democracies turn into “anarchies when institutional mechanisms fail completely” and “when all else fails, people still repose their trust in the judiciary. So when the judiciary fails to respond, it indicates a complete breakdown of the Republic.”

The Wire had reported earlier this week that the letter was sent to the CJI on Tuesday (June 30), following the INDIA bloc’s meeting held on June 8. The contents of the letter were made public on Friday (July 3) and has been seen by The Wire. While the AAP and the DMK did not attend the meeting on June 8, they too have signed on the letter.

The letter says that the parties are expressing their grave concern to the CJI due to the “brazen biased conduct of the Election Commission of India, in particular the Chief Election Commissioner” and the “open, unabashed support of the BJP during the course of and in the outcome of electoral processes.”

The letter refers to the Election Commission in selectively implementing the model code of conduct (MCC) and said that the on multiple occasions the poll body “maintained a stoic silence when openly toxic, communal statements contrary to the principles enunciated in the MCC, are routinely made by those in the BJP.”

It refers to the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls which first started in Bihar in a bid to clean the electoral rolls, accompanied by the BJP’s political narrative of weeding out alleged illegal infiltrators and says that even after the SIR, no figure of illegal foreigners has been provided. 

“Before embarking on the SIR there is nothing to show that the Commission had done any exercise to find the extent to which the electoral rolls in each state were polluted and why it was necessary to do this exercise for these elections and in such haste,” the letter says.

“We write this letter to collectively express our concerns. We believe that recently conducted elections in Delhi, Haryana and Maharashtra were also manipulated. There is enough information provided to the Commission and in the public domain that calls for adopting electoral processes that instil confidence in the public,” the letter says.

The opposition leaders have asked for the SIR to be suspended and be launched when assembly elections are at least five years away so that the poll body representatives can go for verification of voters, instead of a process of documentation which has never been adopted in the past.

“We find, and it is a matter of grave concern, that the agencies of the government, in particular the CBI, the ED and the NIA, are used only to target those in opposition,” the letter says.

“These agencies are also used for the purpose of manipulating the outcome of results in the elections, apart from bringing down elected governments.”

The letter further says that democracies turn into “anarchies when institutional mechanisms fail completely.”

“Therefore, it is the responsibility of all of us to ensure that people’s faith in institutions must endure. And for that, institutions must play their role,” it says.

“We are not questioning the judiciary. In fact, we turn to the courts when every mechanism fails. When this too fails, it leaves open the question – who do we now turn to? We leave that question for you to ponder upon.”

Read the full text of the letter below. 

Esteemed Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, 

We would not have, under normal circumstances, written to you. Given the fact  that our democracy is in jeopardy, we have chosen this unusual path. 

It is only when democracy is a collaborative exercise that it........

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