'Should we share CCTV video of mothers, sisters voting…': EC cites privacy in new argument against sharing data

THe Election direction of bharat (EC) on sun cited privateness concerns of voters to fence why it has not shared CCTV footage from polling booths in recent elections, even after serious allegations of irregularities levied by the Opposition led by Rahul Gandhi.Criticising the use of phrases like “vote chori (theft)”, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar was combative at a press conference in Delhi. He said “unsuccessful efforts to mislead the voters” amounted to “nothing less than an insult of the Constitution”.“At a time when shots are being fired at the voters by perching a gun on the EC's shoulder, we want to make it clear, that the EC has fearlessly stood by voters from across sections and religions, and will continue to stand by them like a rock,” the CEC said, speaking in Hindi.He spoke specifically on why machine-readable voter lists had not been provided to parties, such as the Congress, that have alleged fake names and multiple entries. “The Supreme Court has already held in 2019, that it could breach a voter's privacy,” he said.Not naming Rahul Gandhi, he referred apparently to the Congress MP's and others' citing of some voters having being enrolled at multiple places.“We saw recently, that some voters' photos were shown to the media without their consent; and allegations were made using them,” the CEC said.With it, he also referred to the demand for surveillance footage from polling booths to determine if duplicate or proxy voting took place.“Should the Election Commission share CCTV videos of anyone's mother, daughter-in-law, sister, or of anyone else?” Gyanesh Kumar said, adding, “Only those who have their names on the voter lists can vote in an election.”He mentioned the large number of election officials, booth-level agents and candidates' representatives — nearly 1.3 crore — and argued, “In such a transparent process, can anyone steal votes?”He said no proof was provided to back allegations of people voting twice.The EC had earlier asked Rahul Gandhi to provide proofs under oath, to which he had retorted saying he had already taken the oath of the Constitution as a member of Parliament, and that the EC could simply check its own data that he had cited.The CEC said false accusations “can scare neither the EC nor any voter”.“At a time when shots are being fired at the voters by perching a gun on the EC's shoulder, we want to make it clear, that the EC has fearlessly stood by voters from across sections and religions, and will continue to stand by them like a rock,” the CEC said.