Flawed reports by some agencies causes more damage to credibility of poll management bodies: CEC Kumar

Bengaluru: Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Thursday flagged ”flawed” reports of some agencies and organisations, saying they cause more damage to the credibility of election management bodies as the pioneering work done by them finds no place in such surveys.

Kumar urged the EMBs to come up with essential parameters and standards which should guide such surveys and rankings.

He was addressing the 3rd International Conference on the theme ‘Inclusive Elections and Elections Integrity’ in a virtual format.

The CEC along with fellow election commissioners were in Bengaluru where they also assessed the poll preparedness of poll-bound Karnataka.

He lamented that countries with low inclusivity are ranked high. ”The flawed report causes more damage to the credibility of EMBs,” he added. The CEC urged the participating EMBs to come up with essential parameters and standards which should guide such surveys… countries with low inclusivity are ranked high ,” the poll panel said in a statement.

Talking about the inclusivity, the CEC pointed out that India has 460 million women voters, which is almost equal to the number of men voters. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, more women than men voted. ”This is the level of inclusion that India has been able to achieve,” he said.

In his address, Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey said the Election Commission of India has been working for inclusive elections under the premise of ‘No Voter to be Left Behind’.

”Our flagship voter education programme SVEEP connects with over 950 million voters spread over more than one million polling stations across the country,” he said.

Election Commissioner Arun Goel said inclusive elections are a critical building block of ‘Elections Integrity’.

A total of 59 participants from 31 countries/EMBs including Angola, Armenia, Australia, Canada, Chile Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Dominica, Georgia, Guyana, Kenya, Rep. of Korea, Mauritius, Moldova, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, St. Lucia, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, and Zambia, as well as representatives of two International organisations, participated in the Conference.