Commission's Worrying Omissions

No other democratic country has the institution that conducts elections been under such a harsh spotlight as the Election Commission of India (ECI) is today.

- KAJAL BASU

In no other country has an election commission been accused of deleting more 'false' voters in a decadal registral revision than population growth over that period makes arithmetically feasible. In no other country has an election commission implied to the highest court that a voting-age citizen cannot necessarily vote.

Since its formation in 1950, the ECI has, even while being lauded on certain occasions, been criticised for systemic issues, stupefying lapses and overlooked challenges. The first general election in 1952, marred by issues such as vote-buying, coercion and intimidation, was an omen of troubles to come.

The Representation of the People Act, 1950 profiles and delimits electoral offences, but penalties remain outdated and undeterrent. The ECI responds with advisories rather than decisive action. Over the past decade, the ECI's reflexive defence of the putative wrongdoer—contestant or campaigner—has become its default mode.

This becomes particularly thorny when the hypocentre is the ECI itself. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar has proved to be an exercise so supremely controversial that it has taken on the contours of the undoing of Indian democracy itself—an unprecedented charge against an institution considered the edificial symbol of democracy. Not that the ECI has never conducted SIRs before, but those between 1952-56 and 2004 were not as contentious (despite some being accused of subpar coverage of the citizenry).