Dear Election Commission, time to be deferential to the Prime Minister is over 

Nothing short of the Election Commission debarring the Prime Minister from campaigning in any form till the end of the election should be acceptable or deemed to be adequate. The Election Commission of India could have rapped him on the knuckle three and a half weeks ago when its attention was first drawn to Narendra Modi flouting the Model Code of Conduct. But while the Commission dragged its feet, the PM continued to flout the code. As yet another complaint, the seventh by the Congress, maintained this week, Modi is now a habitual offender.

To be fair to the Election Commission, it has never had to deal with a PM who is always campaigning. He has made elections prohibitively expensive, has misused his office and authority to bend, if not flout, rules.

No Prime Minister before him has campaigned so extensively from state Assembly elections to the general election for the Lok Sabha. It is possible that a fresh set of rules need to be framed to curb such exuberance. But that certainly cannot be an excuse for the Prime Minister of the country to keep flouting rules. He has repeatedly violated the prohibition on any sort of campaigning for 48 hours before the end of polling. A repeat offender, a wilful one at that, he deserves no sympathy from the Election Commission.

Modi has also repeatedly appealed for votes in the name of the armed forces, martyrs and soldiers. He has time and again sought to exploit the tragic suicide attack at Pulwama and the IAF strike inside Pakistan in retaliation. He issued a direct appeal to first time voters to dedicate their votes to ‘soldiers who conducted the Balakot air strike’ and in the name of the martyrs who lost their lives at Pulwama. And as if all this was not enough, he has repeatedly abused his political rivals, accusing them to be unpatriotic and anti-national and of having extra-territorial loyalties. He is also arguably the only Prime Minister to have appealed for votes on the ground of religion.

The Election Commission has done a great disservice to democracy and to itself by treating these violations of the model code with kid gloves. The Commission, it is claimed, has indicated that it would take action before the end of the polls. Let it be said that this is not enough. After allowing the Prime Minister to defy rules and guidelines for three and a half weeks, issuing a warning or barring him from campaigning for 48 or 72 hours is too little and too late. If the sanctity of elections is to be maintained and if the EC were to re-assert its independence and authority, far more stern action is clearly needed.