Eroding Independence

On 7 August 2025, India’s Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi made serious allegations of large-scale voter fraud. Examining electoral rolls covering approximately 650,000 voters in one state assembly constituency within a parliamentary constituency, Gandhi claimed that over 100,000 voters had significant irregularities that hinted at manipulation. This included voters who were on the rolls twice, voters who voted in multiple constituencies, voters with invalid addresses, and voters with invalid photographs. This post does not discuss the veracity of these allegations. Rather, the goal here is to contextualise these allegations against the backdrop of a sharp decline in the independence and trustworthiness of the Election Commission of India (“ECI”). The ECI’s recent actions are particularly troubling at a time when India is considering significant changes to its electoral architecture and should prompt urgent attention towards short- and long-term solutions to secure the Commission’s independence and restore public faith in the body.

The Election Commission’s place in Indian Constitutionalism

The ECI is an independent constitutional body created to administer elections to India’s state legislatures and national parliament. The Chief Election Commissioner has the same protections against removal as a Supreme Court Judge and the President (impeachment by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Parliament). Article 324(2) of the Constitution stipulates that Election Commissioners (including the Chief Commissioner) will be appointed by the President of India, who does so on the advice of the incumbent government (Article 74). While Article 324(2) states that this appointment process is subject to any laws passed by Parliament, no such law has ever been passed.

Despite Commissioners effectively being appointed by the Indian Government, the ECI developed a strong reputation for independence built on decades of robust electoral administration. Commissioners were typically senior civil servants who were both fiercely independent and outspoken. The ECI often worked hand-in-glove with India’s Supreme Court to facilitate political reforms such as compelling candidates to disclose their assets and criminal antecedents. As recently as 2017, the Commission opposed a scheme of anonymous campaign donations (electoral bonds), which was eventually invalidated by the Supreme Court of India for impermissibly obscuring political contributions from public scrutiny (see the discussion of the judgment on Verfassungsblog). Thus, while there was much to be criticised about Indian elections, the integrity of the voting process was trusted by both political parties and the public. Claims of election manipulation are not uncommon in Indian political rhetoric, but they have typically concerned sporadic or isolated instances unlikely to alter electoral outcomes, and the ECI’s proactive engagement with claims and its impeccable reputation meant that such allegations were typically viewed by the public as frivolous.

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The Commission’s downward trajectory

Since 2019, political parties have been raising issues concerning the ECI’s conduct. However,  there has been an acceleration in damaging developments since 2023, when a petition was filed in the Supreme Court arguing that the Government’s unilateral power to make appointments to the ECI brought the Commission’s independence into doubt. The Supreme Court, noting that Parliament had failed to pass a law governing appointments to the Commission in the seven decades since the Constitution’s adoption, ruled that until Parliament passed such a law, appointments to the ECI ought to be made by a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Chief Justice of India. In response to this, the Government enacted a law which flew in the face of the judgment’s logic of protecting the Commission’s independence, creating an appointment committee of the Prime Minister, a Cabinet Member nominated by the Prime Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition. This law effectively gave the Government the power to appoint Commissioners of their choosing. The law has since been challenged in the Supreme Court, but the Court has yet to hear the case. While the Supreme Court’s formula was far from perfect, the Government’s rapid move to reassert control over the Commission was a sign of things to come.

In 2024, India conducted its national elections. There were certain discrepancies between votes polled and votes counted in the Commission’s final figures. While the Commission explained the difference in the figures as an outcome of administrative revisions, it also refused to provide disaggregated data on votes polled to anybody other than candidates, pre-empting any systematic scrutiny of the issue. Subsequently, in December 2024, the Indian Government, on the ECI’s advice, amended the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 to prohibit the disclosure of CCTV footage of polling booths, footage that could previously be purchased from the Commission by anyone for a small fee. Going further, in June 2025 the Commission directed that all CCTV footage of polling booths be destroyed within forty-five days. The stated reason for this was that the footage could be used to spread “misleading narratives” about voter fraud. However, these moves were in stark contrast to the Commission’s previous approach, where all information was made available for scrutiny, and the ECI’s reputation was sufficient to quash frivolous claims.

The Commission managed to erode its reputation still further this summer. Two months prior to elections in the Indian state of Bihar, the ECI decided to conduct a “Special Intensive Revision” of electoral rolls. This entails a wholesale revision of the electoral rolls where all voters in the state were compelled to fill out an “enumeration form” and submit an arbitrary list of documents to re-register as voters. The result has been the deletion of 6.5 million names from the state’s electoral rolls with the ECI once again refusing to provide disaggregated data on which constituencies the deleted names came from. The Commission’s actions are currently under challenge before the Supreme Court, which directed the ECI to publish disaggregated data in a searchable format and expanded the types of documents voters could submit to be reinstated on the rolls. The Commission’s actions during this episode have further eroded political and public trust. It is against this backdrop that the Leader of the Opposition’s allegations of widespread voter fraud must be viewed.

The current allegations as an inflection point for Indian democracy

A few things must be clarified about the current situation.

First, the data analysed by Gandhi and his team concerns one state assembly constituency within one parliamentary constituency. Therefore, further investigation into the claims is necessary before firm conclusions can be drawn. However, what is clear is that Gandhi’s allegations are based entirely on the ECI’s own data, namely the voter rolls and polling records. Further, the reason Gandhi and his team chose to focus only on one state assembly constituency is that the Commission refuses to provide data in an electronic form, instead providing reams of printed data that must be manually inputted into spreadsheets before being subsequently analysed. Therefore, a key demand from Gandhi’s camp is that the Commission provide electronic data to allow for systemic scrutiny.

Second, even if voter fraud is proven, it is unlikely that any legal remedy exists at this stage. Election results in India can only be challenged through an election petition, and under Section 81 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, such a petition must be filed within forty-five days of the election outcome.

Third, the Commission initially asked Gandhi to submit objections to individual names on the voter rolls under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. However, under these Rules, such objections can only be made within thirty days of the rolls first being published (Rule 12), and in any case, objections to individual names on the rolls would be a grossly inadequate response to a claim of widespread manipulation of voter rolls. It would take years for opposition parties to comb through voter lists for the entire country, a task which the ECI is administratively better suited to do (as it possesses electronic records) and, more importantly, a task the Commission is constitutionally entrusted to undertake. The ECI has subsequently modified its demand, simply asking Gandhi to provide the documentary basis for his claims so that it can conduct an investigation.

The latest allegations against the ECI represent an inflection point for Indian democracy. While there has been much to criticise in Indian elections over the years, the integrity of the electoral system has never been one of them. India has flirted with authoritarian leaders in the past, but has also consciously voted them out of office. The ECI’s recent conduct and allegations of voter fraud raise the spectre of India not being able to do this in the future.

Design and repair questions ahead for India

The ECI’s recent conduct and the Gandhi’s allegations highlight a long-standing design flaw in the Indian Constitution – the failure to constitutionally protect the independence of the ECI from Parliament and the Government. For decades, this gap has been papered over through constitutional statesmanship, mutual respect, and fiercely independent Election Commissioners. However, the cracks in the constitutional scheme are on full display today and require solutions. In the long run, the situation calls for a complete overhaul of the constitutional protections for the ECI, most notably the appointment process. However, this may take years to formulate and secure consensus over, and India has numerous state elections in the coming months and years. Additionally, India has several sensitive electoral issues on its legislative agenda, including the redrawing of constituencies across the country (expected in 2027) and a Constitution Amendment Bill in Parliament to synchronise timelines for state and national elections (a proposal which tends to support national parties such as the incumbent BJP). Undergoing these significant (and potentially long-lasting) changes to electoral architecture without an independent election body that commands the trust of all stakeholders is a dangerous prospect. Therefore, more immediate solutions are required.

Conclusion

Currently, the battle over Gandhi’s explosive claims centres around access to searchable electoral rolls, which would facilitate a more sustained study of the allegations. However, as this post highlights, the ECI’s conduct has been increasingly troubling, and the larger battle ahead for India may be how to restore political legitimacy and public trust in electoral administration.

Legitimate elections and the peaceful handover of power have long been a central plank of constitutional stability and continued public faith in India’s constitutional project. The ECI’s exemplary conduct over seven decades has meant that India as a nation had come to take free and fair elections for granted. However, recent events demonstrate that they must still be fought for.