The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday directed all political parties to cease enrolling or registering voters for post-election beneficiary-oriented schemes under the “guise of surveys”, saying it amounts to corrupt practice under election law.
The poll body said some political parties and candidates have been engaging in activities that blur the lines between legitimate surveys and partisan efforts to register individuals for post-election beneficiary-oriented schemes.
A potential of quid pro quo for voting and inducements amounts to bribery or corrupt practice, the EC said in an advisory to all national and regional political parties.
BJP’s complaint
The EC advisory comes following a complaint by the BJP which had said that the Congress’ “Ghar Ghar Guarantee” outreach to people was a “corrupt practice amounting to bribery” and urged the poll body to put a stop to it. Under this initiative, the BJP claimed that the Congress and its workers are distributing “guarantee cards” to households, presenting them application papers for accessing the party’s promised benefits.
The Congress guarantee card promises 25 guarantees under five ‘nyays’ (justice) for social representation, farmers, youth, women, and workers. The guarantee card is signed by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi. The party till now was collecting details of voters in the counterfoil, which they keep.
Five instances
In its advisory on Thursday, the EC cited five instances that “obscure the distinction between legitimate surveys and biased attempts to enrol people in programmes for political gain, all while masquerading as legitimate survey activities or efforts to inform about government programmes or party agendas related to potential individual benefits”.
These included newspaper advertisements seeking to register themselves for benefits by giving missed calls on a mobile or calling on a telephone number, distribution of guarantee cards giving details of schemes along with an attached form asking for details of voters and distribution of forms seeking details and seeking online registration.
“The act of inviting or calling upon individual electors to register for post-election benefits may create an impression of the requirement of one-to-one transactional relationship between the elector and the proposed benefit and has the potential to generate quid-pro-quo arrangement for voting in a particular way thereby leading to inducement,” the advisory said.
