Election Commission and Fairness:
Year: June 2016
Election: Rajya Sabha seat
Electorate: 90 MLAs.
State: Haryana
Vacancies: 2 seats.
Contestants: Birender Singh (BS), a BJP candidate
Subhash Chandra - Independent; BJP support.
RK Anand - Independent; Cong+INLD support.
Year: June 2016
Election: Rajya Sabha seat
Electorate: 90 MLAs.
State: Haryana
Vacancies: 2 seats.
Contestants: Birender Singh (BS), a BJP candidate
Subhash Chandra - Independent; BJP support.
RK Anand - Independent; Cong+INLD support.
Round 1: The Haryana Assembly has 90 members. BS got 40 votes, Anand got 21 votes and Chandra got 15 votes. 14 votes were rejected.
Round 2: With 14 votes rejected, BS needed only 26 to win. So, BS transferred the remaining 14 votes to Chandra as he was the second option marked by BJP MLAs. Chandra thus ended up with 29 votes. The third candidate, RK Anand, stayed put at 21 votes.
EC gave a Violet Ink Pen and instructed all MLAs to use it for voting. Every MLA would vote and pass the pen to the next MLA. BJP MLAs used it. INLD MLAs used it. Last BJP MLA after casting his vote, changed the pen and passed on a black ink pen to the next in line Congress MLA.
And that black ink pen was passed on by every Cong MLA to the next one. 14 passes in all. 14 votes in all. And all those 14 votes were declared invalid by the EC.
Subhash Chandra won. BJP won. Congress lost. INLD lost. Cong charged EC official of fraud. They asked how was the pen changed without the EC noticing it? Imagine a invalid ballot box being used under EC supervision and we all merrily vote.
That my friends, is the story of EC and a respectable mandate in the world's largest democracy.
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