'Not tenable': EC sources on Cong seeking digital copy of Maharashtra voters' list
New Delhi, Jun 26 (PTI): A day after the Congress urged the Election Commission to provide machine-readable digital copy of the Maharashtra voters' list, EC sources on Thursday said the demand is "not tenable" under the prevailing legal framework, asserting that a similar plea of the party was junked by the Supreme Court in 2019.
The EC sources said while Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been demanding for machine-readable, digital copy of the electoral roll for the last seven months, such demand by the Congress is "not new".
"Rather, it forms part of a strategy by the political party for well over eight years, a fact that appears to have been selectively obscured in the present representation," an EC source pointed out.
The EC sources said the demand reiterated by Gandhi, albeit consistent with the position historically maintained by the Congress, is "not tenable within the contours of the prevailing legal framework".
They pointed out that the issue was already agitated by the Congress before the Supreme Court in a writ petition in 2018 filed by Kamal Nath, the then president of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee.
It appears that Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, may not have been appropriately apprised of the finality with which the matter stands concluded in judicial record, they said.
Referring to the Supreme Court's verdict in Kamal Nath vs Election Commission of India, (2019), the sources said that top court had observed that it found force in the submission of EC.
Clause 11.2.2.2 of the Election Manual uses the expression "text mode". The draft electoral roll in text mode has been supplied to the petitioner, the apex court had said.
"The clause nowhere says that the draft electoral roll has to be put up on the Chief Electoral Officer's website in a 'searchable PDF'. Therefore, the petitioner cannot claim, as a right, that the draft electoral roll should be placed on the website in a 'searchable mode'. It has only to be in 'text mode' and it is so provided," the apex court had observed.
The Congress on Wednesday urged the EC to provide machine-readable digital copy of the Maharashtra voters' list along with video footage of polling day of the state and Haryana within a week.
The Congress and Gandhi have consistently accused the poll authority of fudging voter data to help the BJP.
Gandhi has alleged that the Maharashtra assembly polls held last year were rigged.
The poll authority has denied the allegations, saying elections are strictly held under electoral laws passed by Parliament.
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India should create strategic buffers to navigate 'most difficult' energy shock: CEA Nageswaran
New Delhi (PTI): Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran on Saturday said India needs to create strategic buffers in the face of the "most difficult" energy shock that the country is facing amid the West Asia crisis.
Nageswaran also said the rising prices of fertiliser and petroleum products globally due to the crisis will make it challenging to achieve the 4.3 per cent fiscal deficit target for the current fiscal, while below normal monsoon and pass-through of higher energy prices could lead to "potential inflation spike".
He also said India has employment challenge emanating from AI, and there is a need to ensure that IT sector becomes more competitive and not lose jobs to AI, and instead create jobs that use AI within the IT sector or in other services.
Speaking at the ICPP Growth Conference organised by the Ashoka University, Nageswaran said the current account deficit (CAD) in the current fiscal could rise to over 2 per cent of GDP, from less than 1 per cent in FY'26.
"The ... priority for us is to create strategic buffers. This energy shock is the most difficult one compared to any other previous energy shock in terms of energy lost as a percentage of total global energy supply, not just oil, including gas.
"And we also need to use this occasion to think about other areas where we are vulnerable in terms of import dependence, nickel, tin, and copper. We need to build strategic buffers if we have to make a shot at manufacturing and becoming indispensable," Nageswaran said.
Since the beginning of the war in West Asia on February 28, crude oil prices soared to a four-year high of USD 126 per barrel on Thursday, from about USD 73 level before the war.
Stating that geopolitics will compel policymakers to be nimble and flexible and shed old model of thinking, Nageswaran said India is better prepared than many other countries to deal with the crisis because of the fiscal leeway that the country has due to lowering of fiscal deficit ratio to 4.4 per cent of GDP in FY'26.
Nageswaran said the West Asia conflict is more of a price shock than supply shock for India as the government is managing the supply side deftly.
"This particular conflict, which is going to be on a low simmer or a high flame situation, whatever it is, it is going to be there with us in some form or the other because the military conflict may be over, but the strategic conflict is well and truly alive. It will be so for some time," Nageswaran said.
He said the conflict has four channels of shock: price and supply shock, trade impact, sticky logistics costs and remittance shock.
India imports 60 per cent of its LPG usage and of that, 90 per cent flows through the now closed Strait of Hormuz.
Nageswaran said the pass-through of high global energy prices would have to be a "balancing act". He said some pass-through is already happening in commercial LPG, and the levy of export duty on diesel and ATF.
The government has cut excise duty on petrol and diesel to shield customers from the impact of the rise in petroleum prices. "We are coming around to arriving at a certain modus vivendi with respect to burden-sharing between the fiscal policy side, inflation, households and the oil marketing companies. So it has to be a balancing act," Nageswaran said.
