The need to preserve the shine of Indian elections

Why in the News

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has drawn litigation and street protests against the Election Commission of India (ECI), including demands for the Chief Election Commissioner’s resignation. The malaise is wider: Indian elections, long among India’s topmost soft powers, are losing public trust.

Why have Indian elections been a national asset?

1. Soft power: Credible elections gave India stability, reasonable governance and a path to development. India delivered them better than dozens of countries that won independence around the same time.
2. Scale: The 2024 national elections had about 98 crore electors. ECI machinery runs from Nirvachan Sadan to over a million polling booths.
3. A school for others: The ECI set up the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM) to train election managers of younger nations.
4. Voter faith: Poor and largely illiterate at independence, ordinary Indians learned the strength of their vote and came to respect the polling process.
5. The takeaway: Sukumar Sen, the first Chief Election Commissioner, faced a test of logistics in 1951, not of trust, and today trust itself is at risk.

How has the electoral contest changed?

1. Partisan allegations: Chronic allegations of partisan conduct by the poll body, and grievance bordering on rejecting results, have replaced the stoic calm of earlier decades.
2. Disinformation: Door to door campaigns have given way to digital battles fought with disinformation and deepfakes, AI generated fake video or audio.
3. Voter database manipulation: Booth capturing and bogus voting were confined to pockets. Manipulating the voter database through undue enfranchisement or disenfranchisement, adding ineligible names or deleting eligible voters, threatens elections at a far larger scale.
4. Money power: Declared candidate and party spending is a small part of poll finance. Unofficial estimates are far larger.
5. Cash transfers: Cash paid into voters’ wallets as welfare distorts electoral integrity and public finance. The Economic Survey 2026 puts its strain on States at Rs 1.7 lakh crore.

How do defections and disputed management add to distrust?

1. Wholesale defections: The anti-defection law in the Tenth Schedule was meant to stop party hopping. Its exception for party mergers now lets legislators move in bulk.
2. No recall, disputed recognition: With no recall system, voters cannot remove party hoppers. The Speaker’s recognition of splits and the ECI’s symbol allocation also draw partisan accusations.
3. Appointments law: The collegium appointing Election Commissioners under the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 has not eased distrust. The Supreme Court is examining it.
4. Routine functions contested: Roll preparation, the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and the announcement of results now become disputes, even with backing from higher courts.

Why is this more than a problem for the ECI?

1. Shared duty: Election managers, the three organs of the State, parties and voters all have a remedial role.
2. No global excuse: A global decline of democratic values, visible even in the United States, offers India no consolation.
3. Scapegoating: Making the election process a scapegoat in inter-party fights spreads polarised parties’ distrust to ordinary citizens.

Challenges

1. Budget not charged: The ECI’s expenses are not charged on the Consolidated Fund of India, so they need Parliament’s vote, unlike the Supreme Court’s or the Comptroller and Auditor General’s.
2. Weak tenure for Commissioners: Election Commissioners can be removed on the Chief Election Commissioner’s recommendation.
3. Toothless Model Code: The MCC lacks statutory backing, so the ECI relies on moral suasion.

Way Forward

1. All party compact: Parties should hold an apolitical sit-down to add safeguards and plug legal loopholes, the logic behind the 1993 move to a three member Commission.
2. Money, freebies and crime: Regulate political financing and freebies, and shield the electoral process from criminalisation.
3. AI fakes: Build the ECI’s capacity to detect and act against AI abetted fake narratives.
4. Financial independence: Charge the ECI’s expenses on the Consolidated Fund, as the Law Commission’s 255th Report recommended.

Conclusion

Indian elections face a crisis of trust, not of logistics, and no single institution can restore it. Whether parties agree on rules for political finance and defections, and how the Supreme Court rules on the appointments law, will show whether that trust is being rebuilt.

Initiatives to Strengthen the Electoral Process

1. ECINET (2026): A one stop digital interface integrating over 40 applications for voters and officials.
2. cVIGIL app: Citizens report MCC violations, and investigators must respond within 100 minutes.
3. Delisting of RUPPs: Over 808 Registered Unrecognised Political Parties failing essential conditions were delisted, curbing misuse of tax exemptions.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2026, GS2, 10 marks] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”