# Ajayan | The political cauldron continues to bubble, with those at the helm absurdly convinced that the public will swallow every morsel served from the top. Such contempt for public intelligence, in this age of information explosion, exposes a leadership increasingly past its sell-by date. Two glaring instances stand out: the desperate defence for the Chief Election Commissioner, whose conduct has cast a dark shadow over the very foundations of free elections, and the farcical probe into the case involving a former Kerala Chief Minister, his daughter and son-in-law, another former Minister. Both reek of a ruling establishment mistaking public patience for public gullibility.
The 2023 amendment, which ousted the Chief Justice of India from the panel selecting the CEC and replaced him with a Cabinet Minister, alongside the Prime Minister and the Lok Sabha Opposition Leader, laid bare the intent: secure a government majority and call it a selection process. The BJP's defence that no such law existed earlier and successive Centre's handpicked their trusted men to head the Election Commission hardly sanitises the move. It was precisely TN Seshan, handpicked by the Centre who endowed the institution with formidable teeth and authority. Ironically, that hard-won institutional credibility now faces an erosion, terribly corrosive, of public trust.
A newspaper expose detailing umpteen instances of dissent by the two Election Commissioners, over decisions of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, allegedly swept under the carpet has drawn no convincing rebuttal from the authorities. Instead, the crosshairs are trained on the Opposition, particularly Rahul Gandhi, who has been rattling the skeletons in the Election Commission’s cupboard. Political expediency may well drive his campaign, but the BJP’s relentless targeting of him only lends his charges a prophetic ring, while deepening the cloud over the Commission’s credibility.
If the reported Form 6 alteration was indeed Gyanesh Kumar’s handiwork, the SIR risks becoming an exercise in disenfranchisement, keeping as many voters out as possible. More troublingly, the revised form reportedly lacked the Supreme Court’s sanction. The BJP’s deafening silence is particularly conspicuous when even its veteran leader LK Advani faces the prospect of disenfranchisement. Former Kerala Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson’s revelation that Gyanesh had tried to woo him into electoral politics through the BJP further muddies the waters, raising questions not merely about the CEC but also about those who appointed him. Gyanesh’s own bureaucratic record in Keralam offers little reassurance, particularly his troubled stint as PWD Secretary, when he faced disciplinary action.
It is not merely Gyanesh who must answer; those who propelled him into an office entrusted with safeguarding free and fair elections must share the accountability. This goes beyond the partisan calculus of whether the institution favoured one party or turned against another. At stake is every citizen’s constitutionally recognised right to vote, and the solemn assurance that the institution guarding that right remains beyond political capture. Citizens cannot, and must not, be taken for a ride simply because political expediency demands safe havens.
Clogging the simple in Keralam
The Enforcement Directorate comes with its own baggage: its record offers enough instances, across governments, of the agency being accused of being wielded as a political weapon; turned against foes when convenient and softened when expedient. But the CMRL episode of former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s daughter receiving a contract, where the ED suspects corruption and money laundering is hardly news in Keralam; even CPI(M) cadres know the story.
Here, the ED reportedly handed the State Government a dossier alleging money laundering and sought an FIR for the offence. The legal wrinkle is crucial: under the PMLA, money laundering generally rests on a “scheduled offence”, or predicate offence, from which the alleged “proceeds of crime” arise. The predicate offence is therefore the foundation on which the proceeds-of-crime charge rests. Without establishing that underlying offence, the money-laundering case cannot simply float free as a standalone financial crime.
When the ED sought an FIR, Chief Minister VD Satheesan, himself a lawyer, described the allegations as shocking and serious. Yet the Government did nothing. Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, after consultations with Satheesan, instead announced an SIT to probe a case already examined by the Income Tax Department, SFIO and ED. To justify the inaction, he invoked the landmark Lalita Kumari verdict, in which the Supreme Court mandated registration of an FIR in cognisable cases, permitting preliminary inquiry only in specified exceptions. The irony is inescapable: a judgment born of a father's desperate quest for an FIR over his missing daughter is now being invoked to defend official delay.
Even a preliminary inquiry under Section 173(3) of the BNSS, where applicable, carries a 14-day deadline. The UDF Government owes the public an explanation, not a lalita (simple) sleight of hand with a landmark judgment and also when the legal opinion it received from the Director General of Prosecution was clear.
The message is clear: every elected government is accountable to the people. No lie, however often repeated like a refrain, can absolve it of its misdeeds. Elections must be free, fair and inclusive; cognisable offences must be left to the courts to decide. Keeping the people at bay and flouting established norms must never be normalised.