Once a constitutional safeguard, the ECI now risks enabling the erosion of India’s democratic norms through partisanship and opacity. The Election Commission of India (ECI) was set up on January 25, 1950, one day before the country became a Republic. So, historically, the ECI predates the Republic of India, which is an important factoid that […]
The procedure specified for the revision violates existing legal provisions that the ECI has been following for a long time. The schedule is impractical. It might also result in the disenfranchisement of a substantial number of electors of Bihar. First, the facts. The current term of the Bihar state assembly ends on November 22, 2025. […]
Given that the chief election commissioner often mentions the guiding principle of the ECI to be ‘disclosure’, it should not be unreasonable to expect the rationale behind this decision to be made public. On January 7, in a press conference lasting over an hour, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced that the polling for […]
In our excessive focus on EVMs we often fail to look at the other components that demand our attention and reform to improve India’s electoral process. There has been a lot of debate in India about manipulation of elections, their results, and, in particular, about Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Ever since over a million EVMs […]
Poll rule tweak is in keeping with stonewalling by the ECI over the past few years ADDRESSING a press conference on March 13 this year, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar asserted: “Hamare teen hee pillar hain — disclosure, disclosure, disclosure… Disclose everything to the public, to the voter, the voter have (sic) right to […]
A factual narration of what transpired when a citizen lodged a complaint for violation of the MCC to the highest levels in the ECI. Consider the following timeline: April 22, 2024: A complaint is lodged with the Election Commission of India (ECI), for violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by a star campaigner of one of […]
The way the ECI has decided to operationalise the entire exercise of ‘checking and verification’ mandated by the Supreme Court, is unlikely to lead to anything substantive. On April 26, 2024, the Supreme Court delivered the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) judgment rejecting the petitioners’ prayers for 100% counting of VVPAT slips and making Form 17C, […]
It is now clear that the ECI had itself done this calculation but was holding back the total number of voters which it has now, after encouragement by the SC, magnanimously decided to disclose. The Election Commission of India has released the “absolute number of voters for all completed phases” in a press note issued […]
The Election Commission’s letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge makes the ECI appear to be one of the contestants in the electoral fray. As a longtime observer of the electoral and political scene in India, I write this with great anguish. What prompts this piece is the letter that the Election Commission of India (ECI) […]
The original petition requested only for the EB scheme to be declared unconstitutional. The SC did that but went ahead and also issued directions to SBI and ECI to ensure full implementation of the judgment. This initiative of the apex court must be acknowledged and commended 8 pm of March 14, 2024, was somewhat reminiscent […]