Take the HC's sane counsel

The HC directive to the effect that the 2000 voter list be not set aside but relied upon for necessary subtractions and additions to prepare a real-time voter list for the forthcoming national election 2006 instantly strikes a responsive chord in us.

Ever since the creation of the unnecessary controversy by the Chief Election Commissioner's unilateral decision to go for an entirely new voter list ignoring his two colleagues' opinion to the contrary we have been harping on three points: first, the sole job at hand was to have a comprehensive, all-inclusive and accurate electoral roll that did not even unwittingly leave any eligible voter disfranchised instead of entering into distracting semantics unmindful of the extremely limited time for preparation at the EC's disposal. Secondly, we advised the CEC to hold the long-pending internal meeting with his two commissioners to speedily end the conflict they were having as it risked not only any fair preparation of the electoral roll but also the credibility of the EC, which in turn, called into question the conduct of a free and fair election. Last but not least, we unequivocally asserted that the Election Commission was constitutionally mandated to act as a commission and not as one-man show as though it were a personal fiefdom.

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We thought we duly reflected public and broad civil society discomfiture at the slogging matches within the commission that should have otherwise commanded full public respect as an operational necessity.

The CEC has now got, what we believe to be a trouble-shooting wise counsel, and he could only benefit from heeding such advice. What he has been doing is clearly out of sync with standard sense of propriety and basic pragmatism, let alone it being in dissonance with the widely felt public pulse. We implore him not to create any further controversy but to settle down to his historic task of gifting the nation a free and fair election in cooperation with all his colleagues.

It can't be lost on him, as a judge, that having a reference-point in the 2002 electoral roll has its advantage -- the scope for manipulation with the new list that way is minimised to begin with. But in any case, he will be making his tryst with history even more usefully if he should leave a computerised database to help reinforce the authenticity of not just the current voter list but the future ones, too.