The Supreme Court recently set aside the elections to 50 wards in Punjab after multiple violations were found during the polling process by a single-member fact-finding commission appointed by the court. The commission, comprising former Punjab and Haryana HC judge Nirmaljit Kaur, submitted a 239-page report recommending that the elections be set aside.
As per The Indian Express, the commission found several grave violations by ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) members during the December 2024 polls, in which AAP candidates won. The commission found that AAP members engaged in intimidation tactics and violence against candidates from rival parties, including the BJP, Congress, and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
According to the commission, AAP members forcibly prevented candidates from filing nomination papers. The commission held that the Punjab Police acted in connivance with the ruling party and illegally detained rival candidates. Instances of snatching and tearing nomination papers of rival candidates, preventing them from reaching the nomination venue, intimidation, booth capturing, and bogus voting also happened in front of the police.
During its inquiry, the commission questioned returning officers, presiding officers, polling officers, videographers, revenue and police officials. It examined the video recordings, CCTV footage and news reports to ascertain the claims of opposition candidates. The commission was, however, not provided with CCTV recordings of Mini Secretariat premises, where the incidents against the rival candidates took place. In its report, the commission described the state’s failure to preserve the CCTV footage of the Mini Secretariat premises and police stations for the nomination day filing as “sheer negligence inviting adverse inference”.
The AAP government tried to reject the opposition candidates’ claims, arguing that none of them approached the police or any other government or media institutions for the preservation of CCTV footage of the nomination filing day. The commission did not accept the state government’s argument and noted, “However, it is important to note that there was no objection or even an iota of protest that the videos were not genuine. There is no challenge even to the photographs and news reports to be incorrect… Hence, evidence in the form of videos and photographs as placed on record is … sufficient to show there was chaos, violence, snatching, tearing of nomination papers of the candidates on 11.12.2024”.
The commission noted that there were also attempts to destroy video recordings at multiple Wards to eliminate evidence of unfair practices and bogus voting. One of the video clips reportedly showed a person snatching the papers of BJP candidate from Ward 50, Vijay Kumar Garg, from the checking table within the Returning Officer’s room in police presence. In Wards 1, 12, 32, 33, 36, 43, 44, 45, 51 and 52, AAP candidates won unopposed as Congress candidates were forcibly prevented from filing nominations.
Similarly, in Ward 48, AAP candidate Rajesh Kumar won unopposed as his rival Congress candidate Surinder Singh Sachdeva said that his papers were wrongfully rejected. The commission found that the rejection of his papers was not founded on fair reasons. Sachdeva’s papers were rejected based on a Municipal Corporation’s report that alleged pending property tax dues against him. The commission examined the legality of the tax claim and found that the Municipal Corporation’s report was not based on any proper assessment and that Sachdeva was not given notice before the nomination day.
Similar poll results were seen in Wards 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9 and 13 of Dharamkot Municipal Council in Moga district, where AAP candidates were elected unopposed. The Commission said that the police failed to provide security to rival candidates and did not escort them to the nomination venue. It noted in its report that the police instead deliberately restricted opposition candidates, confiscated nomination forms and allowed entry to only a few candidates, “severely compromising the fairness of the electoral process”.
The commission found evidence of bogus voting in Ward 15, where Congress candidate Kuldip Kaur received 163 votes against 2,59forof AAP candidate Tejinder Kaur. The commission said that there were multiple instances of booth capturing, intimidation, and bogus voting, and yet the police closed the investigation into them based on unsustainable reasons.
“CCTV footage and mobile videos proved a great help in revealing the scale and nature of electoral violations. Despite attempts by aggressors to destroy recording devices, some of the partial footage captured multiple instances of booth capturing, intimidation and bogus voting. The police, despite acknowledging the damage to the property and cars smashed, closed the investigation on absolutely unsustainable reasons…” the commission stated.
Based on the findings and recommendations of the commission, the Supreme Court had ordered fresh polls in all 50 wards. The court has also issued a set of directions for the state officials and police to ensure that the elections are conducted in a fair manner.
