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In West Bengal, for instance, even if the discrepancies were more illogical than logical (a Bandopadhyay had better not be a Banerjee, even if patently one and the same person), the exercise did produce desired results; the now bedraggled Trinamool Congress (TMC), having polled only 30 lakh votes less than the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (2 crore 60 lakhs to the latter’s 2 crore 90 lakhs, that is 41% of total votes polled) may well have returned to the seat of power had not some 27 lakh inhabitants been disenfranchised due to the “logical discrepancies” newly coined by the commission.

But, staying with the theme of “logical discrepancies,” here is the larger point: a monumental logical discrepancy (truly the elephant in democracy’s disingenuous parlour) resides at the heart of our electoral system which no less than falsifies the whole constitutional principle of fair representation, and yet, neither the commission, nor the political players, (barring the Left parties) nor learned commentators on democracy who make such fine analyses about niggles here and there seem to want to lay a finger on that monumental discrepancy.

I speak here of the great con of the first past the post system.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

Anybody who takes seriously the injunction that our legislatures must reflect the true logic of franchise must concede that this principle is vitiated election after election by this first past the post con.

What logical discrepancy could be more antithetical to the fair........

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