The Election Commission of India now finds itself under a degree of public and political scrutiny that is uncommon for a constitutional body rather than a government or its ministers. The question before observers centres on whether the electoral commission retains the operational capacity to administer votes — not on any public-order consequences tied to demonstrations.
Opposition parties have raised formal objections to a range of Electoral Commission rulings, reflecting a broader breakdown in confidence between the body and its political stakeholders. Throughout the full run of an election — voter rolls updated, the Election Commission consulting multiple parties in states preparing to vote, voting machines jointly checked, and polling dates finally set — each procedural stage rests on buy-in from those who hold a direct interest in how the process unfolds.
Trust between the two sides has given way to caution, replacing the openness that once characterised their dealings. Disputes and friction have followed the EC across its history. Over the years, the body has faced internal disagreements among its members, questions about partisan conduct, episodes of overreach, and lapses in judgement.
No prior controversy surrounding the EC's operations has called its foundational principles into question to the degree that the present circumstances have. Concerns raised about the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) centre on how it was carried out, not on whether it should have been undertaken at all. The question lends itself to arguments from multiple directions.
Keeping voter rolls accurate and free of irregularities falls within the remit of the Electoral Commission. An institution's conduct, according to observers, is expected to reflect the values it was built on — openness to public scrutiny, a readiness to respond, and a commitment to serving those who cast their votes. Under the SIR process, voters were required to establish their eligibility rather than having that eligibility assumed.
Reactions have spanned organised political pushback against the removal of voters from rolls to the possibility of disengagement among city dwellers, with participation left to individual choice rather than compelled by necessity. A dispute between the EC and the very electorate it was established to serve has now arisen for the first time.
Proponents argue that the bond between the Election Commission and voters has underpinned every major institutional change the body has pursued — spanning the Model Code of Conduct, the rollout of electronic voting machines, and the shift toward digitised procedures — though that relationship itself remains a matter of debate.
Booth Level Officers — whose formal duties include guiding voters through polling booths, shielding them from pressure by party agents, and facilitating home-based voting for residents aged 85 and above — found themselves on a different kind of assignment, fielding conversations with voters whose names had been flagged for removal from electoral rolls.
To ensure accountability, the voter roll moves through three distinct stages: an initial draft is circulated, a window opens for claims and objections, and the verified final version is then made public. No figures have been released on the total number of entries removed to date, and there has been no breakdown covering duplicate addresses or any other classification. Findings from the exercise have not been made publicly available.
The approach marks a departure from how things had previously been handled. Facing questions about whether electronic voting machines could be trusted, the Election Commission launched a public hackathon that opened participation to anyone who wished to test the systems. Queries directed at it regarding SIR have gone without a reply.
No account has been offered for the absence of the yearly Summary Special Revision — the process through which 18-year-olds are added to electoral rolls — across the two most recent cycles. How the EC engages with opposition parties has been reorganised — moving away from an adaptable, open-ended approach toward one governed by fixed procedures.
Parties seeking an audience with the Commission under the revised procedure are required to route their requests through a pre-approved roster of designated representatives, each of whom is required to submit a written application setting out the stated purpose. Once authorisation comes through, the meeting can proceed. Party delegations no longer bring their grievances directly to the Commission, a channel that had previously been open to them.
Those discussions are expected to reverberate through consultations at multiple tiers of the Election Commission, where the push to bring all relevant parties into alignment ahead of polls in Punjab, Manipur, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh remains a central concern.
Throughout the history of the office, each chief election commissioner has upheld commitments to openness by default, placing voters at the centre of decision-making, and maintaining adaptable working relationships with all political parties. Across successive holders of the office, efforts to strengthen and refine these procedures have continued even where disagreement, divergence, or controversy arose.
Under the EC system, the competitive landscape and its governing rules have undergone a degree of transformation in recent times that has no real precedent in the framework's history. The EC leadership faces reported distance on three fronts — its relationship with voters, its standing with opposition parties, and the functioning of its own established processes.
Such gaps in party unity can give political opponents a foothold to dust off dormant debates about how ballots are tallied and election results formally confirmed. One possible outcome is that federal authorities and the judiciary gain expanded influence over how the EC reaches its decisions.
Conducting elections remains the EC's core responsibility — one that neither the judiciary nor the government holds the authority to fulfil on its behalf. Working through the gaps on all three fronts would place the CEC in a position of drawing on either governmental or judicial backing to confirm the legitimacy of its decisions, a process that could unfold in multiple rounds.
