Countering demands that footage from poll booths be retained for more than 45 days, the Election Commission sources have said that while they seem reasonable on the face of it, they will adversely impact the privacy and security of voters.
On Saturday afternoon, Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had questioned the “match fixing” of elections and specifically mentioned the rule of deleting videos of polling within 45 days.
In a post on X, Mr Gandhi posed a series of questions to the Election Commission and alleged that the body responsible for giving answers is deleting evidence.
“Voter list? Will not provide machine-readable format; CCTV footage? It was hidden by changing the law; Photo-video of the election? Not in 1 year, we will destroy it in 45 days. The one from whom answers are needed is destroying the evidence. It is clear the match is fixed. And a fixed election is poison for democracy,” the Congress MP wrote in Hindi.
“What is veiled as a very logical demand is contrary to the privacy and security concerns of the voters, legal position laid down in the Representation of the People Act 1950/1951 and the directions of the Supreme Court,” a source said.
Laying out the reasons, the source added, “Sharing of the footage, which would enable easy identification of the electors by any group or an individual, would leave both the elector who has voted and those who haven’t vulnerable to pressure, discrimination and intimidation by anti-social elements. For instance, if a particular political party gets fewer number of votes in a particular booth, it would easily be able to identify, through the CCTV footage, which elector has voted and which elector has not, and thereafter, may harass or intimidate the electors.”