The Election Commission controversy raises questions about executive influence, technological centralisation and the transparency of India’s electoral system.
By Dr. M. Iqbal Siddiqui
NEW DELHI: The most consequential revelation in the controversy surrounding the Election Commission of India (ECI) may not be an allegation of electoral manipulation—no such manipulation has been established—but something more fundamental: documented questions arising from within the Commission itself about how decisions affecting electoral rolls are being made and implemented.
An investigation by The Indian Express reports that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded at least 14 objections over ten months concerning voter additions and deletions, restoration of names, appeals, Form 6, control of the electoral-roll database and the Commission’s information-technology systems. Some objections reportedly questioned whether decisions or communications had been issued without the knowledge or approval of the full Commission.
The ECI has rejected any suggestion of an institutional breakdown, maintaining that the objections concerned draft-stage or operational matters and that all final decisions, including those relating to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), were unanimous. That position must be acknowledged. But it also raises the central question:
If the final decisions were unanimous, how were the objections resolved—and does the documentary record demonstrate that the constitutional Commission collectively approved the decisions ultimately implemented?
That is not an allegation. It is a question of institutional accountability.
And it matters because the ECI is not an ordinary government department. It is a constitutional authority entrusted with safeguarding the integrity of India’s electoral process.
Fourteen objections—and a constitutional question
Disagreement among Election Commissioners is not itself evidence of institutional failure. Indeed, independent Commissioners should be able to disagree. The significance of the Indian Express revelations lies in the subject matter of the disagreements.
The reported objections concerned the machinery through which citizens enter, remain on, or are removed from the electoral roll. They reportedly included questions about the authority to issue communications, restoration of voters, appeals, changes to forms and the control of the electoral database. These are not peripheral administrative matters.
The electoral roll is the gateway to the vote. The crucial issue, therefore, is not whether Commissioners disagreed, but whether the institutional process ensured that major decisions affecting citizens’ electoral rights were taken by the Commission in the manner prescribed by law.
The ECI says they were. The documentary record should now establish it.
When legal authority meets technological authority
The controversy becomes even more significant when the internal objections are examined alongside the reported experience of voters in Goa.
The Indian Express reported that 97 voters had been found eligible by the competent electoral authorities but encountered difficulty in having their restoration reflected in the digital system. The problem reportedly arose because the software did not provide the necessary mechanism for recording the relevant decisions before publication of the roll. The ECI has reportedly taken steps concerning these cases.
But the episode raises a question much larger than those 97 voters
Who has the final practical authority over the electoral roll—the statutory officer empowered by law, or the technological system through which that officer’s decision must be implemented?
The answer should be obvious in a constitutional democracy: technology must serve the law, not silently replace it. An Electoral Registration Officer is a statutory authority. A software platform is not.
If a legally authorised officer determines that a citizen is eligible but the central system prevents that determination from being implemented, the problem is no longer merely technical. It becomes a question about the distribution of institutional power. That is why the ECI’s IT architecture deserves independent scrutiny.
Who controls the database?
The reported objections of Election Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi are particularly significant because they reportedly questioned the centralisation of the electoral-roll database and the distribution of technical access. Again, this does not establish that the database has been manipulated.
But it does raise an important constitutional question:
Can electoral authority remain genuinely decentralised if the technology necessary to exercise that authority is increasingly controlled from the centre?
The distinction between legal and technological authority matters enormously. Suppose an ERO has statutory authority to correct a voter’s record. Suppose the ERO makes that decision. But suppose implementation depends upon a centrally controlled database and the ERO does not possess the technical capability to execute it.
The law may say one thing while institutional practice produces another. That gap must not exist in an electoral system.
The ECI should therefore disclose, in appropriate form, the hierarchy of access to its electoral databases, the safeguards against unauthorised changes, the audit mechanisms and the circumstances in which a central authority can modify or override a decision taken by a statutory officer. Transparency here would strengthen—not weaken—the Commission.
The Form 6 controversy
A similar question arises over Form 6, the application used by citizens seeking inclusion in the electoral roll. The Indian Express reported that the online version of Form 6 incorporated an additional declaration relating to the applicant’s or parents’ presence in an earlier electoral roll during SIR. Questions were subsequently raised about the legal authority for introducing such changes through the digital system.
Here again, the proper response is not to declare the change illegal before the legal position has been fully established.
The proper questions are: What provision authorised the change? Was the prescribed rule-making process followed? Was the change approved collectively by the Commission? Were the objections of the other Commissioners resolved before implementation?
These are questions of administrative legality, not political rhetoric. If the ECI has clear answers, they should be placed in the public domain.
SIR: the power exists—but its exercise must remain accountable
There is an important legal distinction that must not be lost amid the political controversy. The Election Commission does possess constitutional and statutory authority to revise electoral rolls. The Supreme Court has upheld the ECI’s authority to conduct the Bihar SIR under Article 324 of the Constitution read with Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. But judicial recognition of that power does not mean that every subsequent administrative decision made in the course of SIR automatically becomes lawful.
The relevant questions remain: Who decided to initiate the exercise? What evidence was placed before the Commission? Was the decision taken collectively? Who designed the operational methodology? Who authorised changes to forms and digital systems? Who controls the database? How can a citizen challenge an erroneous exclusion?
And above all: Can every consequential decision affecting a citizen’s electoral status be traced to a legally authorised officer and an auditable institutional process? These questions survive the Supreme Court’s recognition of the ECI’s power to conduct SIR.
The appointment architecture cannot be ignored
The present controversy also requires examination of the institutional architecture created by the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023.
The Supreme Court’s 2023 Anoop Baranwal judgment had, pending legislation, placed the Chief Justice of India on the selection committee for Election Commissioners. Parliament subsequently replaced the CJI with a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister.
The resulting three-member committee consists of the Prime Minister, the nominated Union Cabinet Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. Although, that does not prove that any Election Commissioner is politically controlled. But it does create a legitimate constitutional question:
Does a selection mechanism in which two of the three members belong to, or are selected by, the executive provide sufficient structural insulation for an institution whose principal constitutional duty is to conduct elections involving that very executive?
That question is no longer merely academic. The constitutional validity of the appointment framework is under judicial consideration. Justice Dipankar Datta has reportedly stressed that the ECI must not merely be independent but must also appear independent. That principle deserves wider public attention.
In constitutional democracy, institutional legitimacy depends not only upon the absence of proven wrongdoing but also upon safeguards against reasonable doubts about institutional independence.
Executive dominance need not mean direct interference
There is an important distinction here. One need not allege that the Prime Minister or the Union Government personally instructed the ECI to manipulate electoral rolls. The more serious structural question is whether executive influence can become embedded in the architecture of an institution without any direct order ever being issued.
Institutional design matters.
Appointments matter.
Control over administrative rules matters.
Control over technology matters.
Control over information matters.
And transparency matters.
A constitutional democracy should not depend upon the personal restraint of whoever happens to occupy an office. It should depend upon institutional safeguards strong enough to survive even when political pressures are intense.
Accountability That Comes Too Late
More troubling is the apparent gap between internal warnings and public accountability.
If Commissioners raised objections over ten months, why did the public learn of them only through investigative reporting? If concerns arose over database access or Form 6, why was their legal and institutional basis not clarified publicly? If statutory decisions could not be implemented because of software constraints, how many similar cases were identified and reviewed?
A democratic institution should have mechanisms that trigger prompt review when serious internal concerns arise. Accountability that begins only after journalists uncover internal correspondence is, by definition, accountability delayed.
The real issue is not the CEC
It would be convenient to make the entire controversy about the present CEC. That would be too easy—and ultimately too superficial. The present CEC is an important actor in the present episode, and his decisions are legitimately subject to scrutiny. But the larger question is institutional.
Can India maintain an Election Commission that is independent in appointment, collective in decision-making, decentralised in statutory functioning, transparent in administration and accountable in technology?
That is the real test.
Governments change.
Election Commissioners change.
Political parties change.
The electoral machinery remains.
Democracy must be protected before the ballot box
Electoral integrity does not begin at the polling booth. It begins with the electoral roll.
If an eligible citizen is missing from the roll, the ballot box cannot restore the lost franchise. If a lawful correction cannot be entered into the database, the right to vote exists only on paper. If a statutory officer cannot effectively implement a lawful decision, decentralised electoral administration becomes a fiction. And if citizens cannot know how consequential decisions are made, public trust inevitably erodes.
None of this, by itself, proves electoral manipulation. It does, however, expose the need to scrutinise the safeguards designed to prevent it.
The democratic response should therefore be neither blind faith in the Election Commission nor blanket condemnation. It should be transparency.
Publish the relevant institutional records. Explain the 14 objections and how they were resolved. Clarify the legal basis for changes to statutory forms. Make the architecture and access controls of the electoral database independently auditable. Ensure that statutory officers can effectively implement their lawful decisions. And strengthen the appointment process so that the independence of the electoral authority commands confidence across the political spectrum.
The Election Commission belongs neither to the government nor the Opposition. It does not belong to the CEC. It belongs to the Constitution and the people of India.
The question, therefore, is not whether electoral manipulation has been proved—it has not. The deeper question is whether the institutional architecture designed to make such manipulation difficult remains sufficiently independent, transparent and accountable.
That question cannot be answered by political assertion. It must be answered by documents, procedures, safeguards and public scrutiny. Because before a citizen can cast a vote, the electoral system must first recognise that citizen as a voter.
Who controls that recognition is not an administrative question. It is a constitutional one.
Courtesy: India Tomorrow
