Lok Sabha polls: Election Commission behaving like a child who can't decide what is good and bad

The acknowledgement by the Election Commission in the Supreme Court that it is now aware of its powers after the court ordered the commission to act decisively against offenders, reduces the status of the poll panel to that of a minor in need of guardianship The acknowledgement by the Election Commission in the Supreme Court that it is now aware of its powers after the court ordered the commission to act decisively against offenders, reduces the status of the poll panel to that of a minor in need of guardianship. If there has to be a Supreme Court to handhold the Election Commission into doing things, it raises serious questions about the integrity and future of the commission, which is tasked with the most important job of holding free and fair elections in the world’s largest democracy. Apparently, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi felt so irritated that he threatened to ask for the presence of Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora in half-an-hour’s time. During the hearing of a petition on the issue before a bench headed by Gogoi and including Justice SK Kaul, which referred it to the constitution bench in October last year, senior activist advocate Prashant Bhushan pointed out that when the provision for selection of the election commissioner was being inserted in the Constitution, Dr BR Ambedkar had suggested that Parliament make a law for this.