Parakala Prabhakar comes from a staunch Congress family. Both his father and mother had been Members of the Legislative Assembly representing the Congress. His father held cabinet positions 3 times in the AP Assembly.
Prabhakar is from Narasapuram and he did his BA from Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada. Then he did his MA and M Phil from JNU, Delhi. He later took his doctorate from the London School of Economics in 1991.
Parakala Prabhakar and Nirmala Sitharaman met when
they both were studying at JNU and got married in 1986. On political ideology,
they are dead opposed to each other. Although Nirmala Sitharaman never makes
any public statement against his beliefs, Parakala Prabhakar overdoes that and
is highly critical of her party, the BJP. Despite his vehement criticism, the
marriage endured for 29 years now and that is a testament to her patience
because I have not seen her giving a single public comment about his political
views while he excels at it. Each to their political opinion, and no one
bothers but when they start airing their opposing political views in public
then it can lead to many interpretations.
After education Prabhakar never took up any job
despite being a Phd from London School of Economics and chose to remain merely
as a political commentator. He was a communications advisor to the YSRCP
Government between the years 2014-2018. He is called an Economist but I have not
seen any of his works as an economist at all. He is only good at criticism and offers
nothing constructive. His prominence was merely because he is the husband of
Nirmala Sitharaman. Had that not been so, probably no one would have noticed him.
Parakala Prabhakar chose to write a note on the
Assembly elections of AP held in 2024 titled “Is there Mischief Behind the
Miracle of the 2024 Polls”.
Now as for my political belief, I prefer Jagan
to Chandrababu as CM, however, truth is truth and it cannot be seen through the
political spectrum and get colored accordingly. I strongly feel Parakala Prabhakar
had done a grave injustice to truth by this article and want to put the
position straight by commenting on it below:
Before we go to examine the issue of the allegations of Parakala Prabhakar, let us take the figures first from his own write up. Because based on those, he wove a web of concocted stories trying to implicate the Election Commission in malpractices.
https://thewire.in/government/is-there-mischief-behind-the-miracle-of-the-2024-andhra-pradesh-polls
As per his
own figures
But before commencing on the critique I have to admit that the Election Commission, be that of AP or the ECI has committed a monumental blunder in announcing figures without properly taking in the figures reported and consulting each other. I cannot say whether the blunder is from the AP EC or the ECI because they are contradicting themselves because the former said it was 68% by 5 PM, while the latter said it was 68% by 8 PM. So both the figures cannot be correct and one of them has to be compulsorily wrong. This is fact that cannot be denied and such uncoordinated actions by the state and National Commissions is totally improper and it gives chances for such interpretations like that of Parakala Prabhakar. All one needs is one inconsistency like in this case and the issue can be blown up to accuse the EC itself of favouring one party at the expense of the other.
The figure that initiated all this controversy
was the voting figure released by the AP EC as 68.04% up till 5 PM on that day.
On this figure he did not give any press statement or apress note or a tweet,
but merely stated it to the press.
Now let us
have a look at the figures
Parakala Prabhakar, in his haste to prove the EC guilty takes the flawed figure of 68.04% given till 5 PM as the basis of his entire calculation. This figure was never put out as a tweet or as any press release by the AP EC. He merely mentioned it to the press reporters who were eager to grab it and transmit it all over.
Another important number Prabahkar puts in the
AP ECs mouth on which his entire calculation is based is that large voter
queues are there only in 3500 booths. What the EC of AP mentioned was that even
at 5 PM large queues of voters are there in many booths and he never mentioned
that figure of 3500. Parakala Prabhakars entire calculation is based on these
3500 booths which never came out of the EC’s mouth. Only some officials
indicated this 3500 figure to the press. Some official telling something to the
press is not official news coming from the EC of AP.
Prabhakar also assumes that polling has
concluded at 11.45 PM and bases his Calculation on that. The ECI never said
that polling had concluded when it gave a press release on the 11.45 PM
figures.
If these factors are taken into consideration,
then Prakala Prabhakars theory falls flat on its face. No doubt the EC of AP quoted
a polling figure of 68% till 5 PM, while the ECI said it was 68% only by 8 PM. Such
mistakes are not at all expected from poll bodies at the state and the centre
and they have certainly bungled on that.
The ECI had been very consistent on reporting
of poll percentage as 68.12% at 8 PM, 76.5% at 11.45 PM and finally 81.79% at
conclusion. There is no such thing as only 3500 booths on which Prabhakar fully
bases his calculation on.
Also regarding the small differences in
reporting, consider this. Each EVM is a standalone machine and is not attached
to any other by way of either a connecting chord or a Wifi. The isolation of
the EVM’s has been deliberately done by the EC because they should not present
any chance of getting hacked online.
That means each booth has to manually report
the figures to the polling station in charge. He/she in turn would have to
report the figures to the AP EC and the reporting is not automatic. Obviously
the EC of AP would have software to collate all the individual data that is
coming in from the polling stations.
But the weak in this chain is the Polling
station in charge who has to manually feed the data into the software supplied
by the AP EC or get it fed by another person because the EVM’s cannot be linked
to any other device. At the time of this entering of data mistakes can take
place because there are 46,389 polling stations and that many individuals
feeding the data.
Based on that, intermediate duration data would
never be accurate because different booths can have different voting patterns with
each of them registering voting at different times and also reporting at
different times. So the intermediate data is only an approximation and can
never be perfect. So the ECI, to make sure that such interpretations as that of
Parakala Prabhakar arise due to doubt and also bias, and has to make sure that
either they report the data or the concerned state EC’s do it. If both lack the
coordination, then it would end up only in such a fiasco.
Then there is another important factor which Prabhakar has conveniently forgotten or chose to ignore deliberately. Each booth has agents of all major parties and the EVM’s after completion of voting are sealed in their presence.
The sealed EVM’s in turn are moved to highly guarded strong rooms in the district in the presence of party agents and the rooms are sealed in their presence. The strong rooms are again opened in the presence of party agents. So how can any malpractices or tampering can be done in this operation? Unless, of course the agents of all parties compromise at all the strong rooms in unison and the officials too collude in it. Is such a thing possible without a leak from thousands of people? The chances for this not even 1 out of 1 crore or even more.
So, yes there are inconsistencies in the statement by the state Commissioner for AP and the Election Commission, and that should be condemned for creating a doubt in the minds of the people, but that does not compromise the election in any way at all.
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