Devika Dutta
(debika.dutta2015@gmail.com)
The credibility of a democracy is tested long before a voter enters a polling booth. It is tested when an electoral roll is prepared, when a name is added or removed, when an objection is examined, when an official verifies a document and when a constitutional institution takes a decision that may affect millions of citizens. These processes rarely command the drama of an election result, yet they constitute the invisible architecture upon which the legitimacy of that result rests. This is why the recent controversy surrounding the Election Commission of India calls for something more considered than competing political narratives. A newspaper investigation has raised questions about internal deliberations within the Commission; the Commission has offered its explanation and maintained that its final decisions were unanimous. Between these narratives lies a responsibility that belongs to everyone concerned about Indian democracy: to distinguish what is documented from what is interpreted, what is debated from what is decided, and what is alleged from what is established.
A recent investigation by The Indian Express reported that election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had recorded objections on several occasions concerning matters connected with electoral-roll revision, voter registration and deletion, access to electoral databases and aspects of election technology. The newspaper reported at least 14 instances of such objections and interpreted these exchanges as evidence of significant differences within the commission. Such reporting deserves public attention because the Election Commission is a constitutional institution and its internal functioning is legitimately subject to scrutiny. Yet the existence of an internal note, observation or objection does not, by itself, establish that an institution has become divided or that its final decisions were improper. The Commission has responded that observations and differences during deliberations are part of the normal functioning of a multi-member body and has maintained that decisions of the full Commission, including those concerning the Special Intensive Revision, were unanimous. That response does not make scrutiny unnecessary; it makes careful scrutiny necessary.
There is a fundamental principle of institutional governance that deserves emphasis: deliberation should not be confused with division, disagreement should not automatically be interpreted as dysfunction, and an objection should not be mistaken for a final decision. A constitutional body in which members can examine proposals, raise questions and record reservations before arriving at a collective decision is not necessarily a weakened institution. It may instead be demonstrating the deliberative character responsible governance requires. The relevant question is whether the final decision was reached through the constitutional and statutory mechanism prescribed for the institution. If differences are considered, the authorised body takes the final decision and the required procedure is followed, preliminary disagreement cannot by itself become evidence of institutional failure.
This distinction matters especially because the authority of the Election Commission does not originate in the government of the day. Article 324 of the Constitution vests the superintendence, direction and control of elections in the Election Commission. The institution therefore transcends individual office-holders and political governments. Commissioners serve for defined periods, but the constitutional institution survives every change of government and every electoral cycle. Its credibility must consequently be protected from both extremes: the expectation that it should be immune from criticism and the assumption that every criticism necessarily reveals wrongdoing. A constitutional institution deserves scrutiny precisely because its responsibilities are consequential, but that scrutiny must remain anchored in law and evidence.
The debate is also unfolding as India’s electoral administration undergoes profound technological transformation. Managing electoral rolls for one of the world’s largest electorates cannot realistically remain dependent upon paper records and manual processes alone. Digital databases and integrated systems can make administration faster, more systematic and better equipped to identify duplication and maintain records. Properly designed technology can also improve transparency by creating digital trails through which changes can be identified and audited. The real question is therefore not whether technology should enter electoral administration; it already has. The question is whether technology remains an instrument of lawful administration or becomes an opaque layer through which decisions are made without adequate human accountability.
A digital electoral system should strengthen the work of authorised officials without diminishing their statutory responsibility. Where an official is empowered by law to verify a claim, decide an objection or correct a record, technology should facilitate that decision, preserve an audit trail and make responsibility identifiable. Technology cannot possess constitutional authority merely because it controls access to a database. Digital governance must strengthen the implementation of law, not create a new source of authority outside it. At the same time, technology should not become the convenient explanation for every administrative difficulty. Citizens move between constituencies, addresses change, names may be recorded differently and databases require constant updating. Errors can occur even in carefully administered systems. A technical failure, an administrative mistake, a procedural disagreement and deliberate manipulation are four different propositions requiring four different standards of proof.
The Special Intensive Revision has brought these questions into sharper public focus. Electoral-roll revision is necessary because a credible roll must reflect the legally eligible electorate at a particular point in time. Yet any large-scale verification exercise can generate apprehension because the deletion of an eligible citizen’s name can have consequences as serious as the inclusion of an ineligible name. The objective must therefore be accuracy, not simply expansion or contraction of the roll. Every eligible citizen should have a meaningful opportunity to establish entitlement, while the electoral system must guard against duplication and ineligible entries. The legitimacy of such an exercise ultimately depends upon safeguards surrounding both inclusion and exclusion.
The scale of Indian electoral administration makes this balance particularly demanding. A system dealing with hundreds of millions of voters cannot be judged by isolated anecdotes alone, just as an individual administrative error cannot be dismissed merely because the overall system appears to function effectively. Both the macro and micro dimensions matter. Large institutions require standardised systems, but citizens encounter those systems through individual cases. A voter whose name disappears from a roll does not experience the matter as a statistic; for that citizen, it is a question of democratic participation. Mechanisms for notice, verification, correction and appeal are therefore not bureaucratic formalities. They are safeguards of democratic citizenship.
There is, however, an equally important danger on the other side. When every discrepancy in electoral administration is immediately described as evidence of manipulation, the institution itself can become a political target rather than a constitutional mechanism. Such a conclusion should not be reached without compelling evidence. Elections are too important to be administered under a permanent cloud of suspicion, just as they are too important to be insulated from legitimate scrutiny. The democratic position that serves institutions and citizens alike is one in which evidence is examined, explanations are heard and conclusions remain proportionate to what the evidence actually establishes.
Political parties have an important responsibility in this ecosystem. Criticism of the Election Commission is a legitimate part of democratic politics, but political contestation should not turn every administrative disagreement into a constitutional crisis. Parties can raise specific questions, provide evidence where irregularities are alleged and use institutional mechanisms available for correction and appeal. The Commission, for its part, has an equally important responsibility to communicate clearly when electoral exercises are complex and public anxiety is high. Transparency is not an admission of weakness. A confident constitutional institution can explain its procedures because its authority ultimately rests upon law.
The government, too, has a larger institutional interest in preserving the credibility of the Election Commission. Governments may benefit from electoral victories, but governments also depend upon elections whose legitimacy is accepted by those who win as well as those who lose. The enduring interest of the State is therefore larger than the political interest of any particular administration. A strong, credible and constitutionally autonomous Election Commission is an asset to the Republic itself.
The media occupies another essential place in this ecosystem. Investigative journalism can uncover information deserving public scrutiny, and democratic institutions should not fear serious reporting. But journalism and adjudication are not the same exercise. A reported internal disagreement may be newsworthy without constituting proof of institutional misconduct. Likewise, an institutional denial should be examined rather than accepted merely because it comes from an official source. The healthiest democratic culture is one in which neither headlines nor official statements become substitutes for evidence.
Ultimately, the debate should not become a referendum on Gyanesh Kumar, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Vivek Joshi or The Indian Express. Individual names will eventually disappear from the institutional record. The Election Commission will remain. So will Article 324, the electoral rolls, the technology through which they are administered and, most importantly, the citizens whose participation gives the entire system its democratic meaning. The enduring question is whether India’s electoral institutions continue to operate through law, procedure, evidence and accountability, and whether citizens can see enough of that process to place informed trust in them.
Democracy does not require citizens to suspend their questions. Nor does it require them to assume the worst whenever questions arise. It requires something more demanding: the maturity to examine evidence without prejudice and to preserve institutional faith without abandoning institutional scrutiny. The ballot is placed in a voter’s hand for only a few moments. The trust behind that ballot takes years to build. Governments will change, Commissioners will change, technologies will change and controversies will inevitably arise. What must not change is the constitutional commitment to an electoral process in which every legitimate voter has a place and every institutional decision can ultimately be defended by law, evidence and procedure. When the political noise fades, that trust is what will remain. In a democracy, trust is not merely the atmosphere surrounding the ballot; it is the foundation that gives the ballot its meaning.