New Delhi: At least 124 former civil servants, with direct or indirect involvement earlier in India’s electoral process, wrote an “open letter to the citizens of India” on Saturday in favour of the Election Commission’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voters list and condemned the use of “rigged” without evidence.
“We have conducted or studied India’s elections all through our lives. We prepared the rolls, trained polling parties, sealed strong rooms and supervised counts. We belong to no party. We write because one word, ‘rigged’, is now thrown at our elections without evidence, and every repetition wounds democratic trust that belongs to all of us,” began the statement.
“If the system you call rigged is the same one that handed you your victories, ask yourself whether it is the system you doubt, or only the result,” it added towards the end.
Stressing that they served in those days that now one sees only on films, when country-made guns, musclemen, ballot boxes being stuffed or stolen, with voters turned away, were rampant. “Booth capturing was so common that Parliament made it a crime in 1989,” they wrote, adding, “When violence speaks, democracy falls silent.”
They cited the example of Bihar, once synonymous with booth capturing, which in 2025 witnessed an election without a single re-poll, “a first in its history. “Turnout was the highest since 1951, and women voted in record numbers,” they added.
Names included former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal, former secretaries of ministries and departments of the Union government like R. D. Kapur, Samirendra Chatterjee, Gopal Krishna, Vivek Bhardwaj, Anand Kumar; former Ambassadors Shyamala B. Causik, Bhaswati Mukherjee, Yogesh K. Gupta, Prabhu Dayal, Anil Trigunayat, J. K. Tripathi, Deepak Vohra, among several ex-special secretaries, erstwhile chief secretaries of states, DGPs, and other senior officers.
The joint statement credited strict rules and procedures laid down by the poll body that ensure involvement of not only government officials but even candidates and their agents in the conduct of elections.
“Rigging would need the silence of tens of thousands of officials from governments of every political colour, and of the losing parties’ own agents. No such conspiracy has ever been proved,” they asserted. They have also pointed to the Election Commission being a multi-member body, “a design the Supreme Court upheld in 1995, so that no one person holds such power. Three Commissioners weigh every question from different angles, and that’s not something unforeseen”.
The statement added that the SIR sanitises voters lists and weeds out ineligible voters, acknowledging that it brings some discomfort in the process, “which is part of every major initiative to improve the health of Indian democracy”.
The officers contended “Institutions cannot be judged on the touchstone of political affiliation”, citing results where “the party ruling at the Centre lost” in several states. Proving an allegation is the accuser’s duty, they emphasised, where the law provides the means, adding “A charge made at press conferences but never placed on oath can be neither tested nor answered. Suspicion, however loud, is not proof”. Bihar’s rolls had not been intensively revised since 2003, the statement reminded, and officers found during the SIR exercise about 22 lakh dead electors, seven lakh duplicate entries and lakhs more who had moved away for good.
“Every such name is an invitation to impersonation. An uncleaned roll does not protect the voter,” they stated, “It protects the fraudster.” Stressing that SIR is not a weapon of exclusion, they pointed out that no name is removed without notice and a hearing, adding, “While the dead and the duplicated were removed, about 21.5 lakh new voters were added”. While the Supreme Court refused to halt the SIR, it “watched every step” and provided safeguards where necessary.
“Respecting the Court’s verdict, even when it disappoints us, is the price of a constitutional democracy,” they added. The statement further hailed the hard work of Booth Level Officers (BLOs), against whom sweeping allegations are “unfair and unjust”, saying, “Question everything, but when someone says ‘rigged’, ask for proof they will swear to.”
–IANS–
