The Indian Express’s investigative disclosures about acts of commission and omission within the Election Commission of India (ECI) have punctured the comforting myth of institutional neutrality at a time when much of the media landscape was dismissed by critics as “Godi media.”
What emerges is not merely an administrative controversy but a constitutional stress test: over 13 crore names were struck off the draft electoral rolls in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), statutory forms were altered against recorded legal advice, and a centralised IT architecture sidelined field officials and, allegedly, even fellow Commissioners. This article analyses where India has gone wrong and sketches a pragmatic roadmap to restore trust in the bedrock of its democracy. The information is based on open sources.
The Core Allegations: A Pattern, Not an Incident
The report is based on internal notes and correspondence from October 2025 to August 2026, which show that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, on record, objected at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions taken by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The objections cluster around four fault lines.
- Form 6 Altered Without Rule Amendment. In July 2026, the ECINET portal introduced a new, effectively mandatory declaration in Form 6—the statutory form under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960—asking applicants whether they, their parents, or their grandparents appeared on the electoral roll for the last SIR. Commissioner Joshi had warned in May that Form 6 could not be changed without amending the Rules through the Government of India; Commissioner Sandhu later termed the change “unauthorised and illegal.” Yet the modified form went live, with the portal configured so applicants could not proceed without answering.
- Centralisation of Electoral Roll Software. Control of the roll-management software was transferred to the Commission’s IT division in Delhi, despite objections that this undermined the statutory role of the district and state election machinery. Critics argue that the result is a top-down regime in which local verification is bypassed and anomalies become harder to trace.
- Mass Deletions Without Adequate Safeguards. The SIR, which began in Bihar in June 2025 as a routine clean-up, has so far deleted over 13.37 crore names from draft rolls across 30 states and UTs—about 14.1% of pre-SIR entries. Delhi leads with a 33% deletion rate, while Maharashtra and Bihar also saw large-scale removals. Appeals have surged, with reports of 16 lakh appeals in West Bengal filed under a single officer’s login, raising questions about the integrity of the process.
- Decision-Making Without Full Commission Meetings. The investigation notes a four-month period (May–August 2026) when the full three-member Commission reportedly did not meet even once, even as consequential SIR decisions were taken. The ECI’s public response acknowledged the dissent notes but described them as part of its “decision-making process,” without disputing their existence or content.
Taken together, these are not isolated glitches but indicators of a system drifting from collegial, rule-bound administration towards a centralised, executive-heavy mode of functioning.
Why This Matters: Constitutional Design vs. Administrative Convenience
The ECI is not an ordinary regulator; it is a constitutional authority responsible for conducting free and fair elections under Article 324. Its legitimacy rests on two pillars: procedural legality and perceived impartiality. When a statutory form is altered without the requisite rule amendment, the first pillar cracks. When two of the three Commissioners record repeated objections that are overridden, the second pillar wobbles.
The stakes are heightened by the SIR’s scale. Deleting 13 crore names is not inherently illegitimate—electoral rolls do require pruning duplicates, deaths, and migrations. But the constitutional risk lies in who decides, by what standard, and with what recourse.
If software gatekeeping is centralised, field officers are sidelined, and appeals are processed in bulk without transparent audit trails, the system becomes vulnerable to both error and manipulation.
Critics have drawn parallels with Pakistan, where the Chief Justice’s confrontation with martial law administrators is cited as a benchmark for judicial assertiveness in defence of voting rights. The comparison is provocative but imperfect: India’s crisis is less about overt authoritarianism and more about technocratic overreach, the belief that efficiency justifies bending rules and that central control is superior to dispersed accountability.
Governance Deficits: The Context Behind the Cynicism
Law and order, waste management, and basic infrastructure remain abysmal in Delhi and other capitals—a reality that aligns with lived experience. During the 2020 US Presidential visit, slums were screened from view; similar optics management was reported around the September 2026 BRICS summit.
This dissonance between “Viksit Bharat” narratives and ground realities fuels public cynicism. When the basics of governance fail, citizens become susceptible to grand narratives that promise dignity without delivering services.
In this ecosystem, electoral roll controversies are especially toxic. They touch the core of political equality: the right to vote. If citizens believe the referee has become a player, trust evaporates not just in the ECI but in the entire democratic contract.
Where We Went Wrong: A Diagnostic
Several structural and behavioural failures converge.
- Rule-Of-Law Erosion Within The ECI. Centralisation without accountability: Shifting control of ECINet and roll management to a central IT division, while marginalising state and district officers, creates a single point of failure and opacity. It also weakens feedback loops that catch errors before they escalate into mass deletions.
- Collegiality Compromised. A three-member commission is designed to prevent unilateralism. When two members are repeatedly excluded from decision-making, the constitutional safeguard is nullified.
- Judicial Complacency. The judiciary’s reluctance to intervene decisively in electoral administration—absent clear, litigable violations—has allowed administrative controversies to fester. While courts cannot micromanage rolls, they can enforce procedural legality and transparency.
- Media and Civil Society Lag. For years, critical scrutiny of the ECI was muted by a narrative of institutional sanctity. The Indian Express’s investigation is a corrective, but it also shows how long it took for internal dissent to surface.
- Citizen Disengagement. Voters, preoccupied with daily survival, have not demanded granular accountability for electoral processes. This apathy allows administrative overreach to proceed unchallenged until it becomes a crisis.
What Needs to Be Done: A Reform Agenda
Restoring trust requires both immediate remedial action and structural reform.
Immediate Steps
- Freeze and Audit SIR Deletions. Halt further deletions until an independent audit—by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) or a Supreme Court-monitored committee—verifies the methodology, data sources, and appeal outcomes.
- Revert Form 6 to Its Statutory Form. Immediately remove the SIR-linked declaration and issue a public clarification that any changes to Form 6 require rule amendments notified by the government.
- Publish Appeal Data. Release state-wise data on appeals filed, disposed of, and restored, along with anonymised case samples to demonstrate due process.
- Restore Full Commission Meetings. Ensure all consequential SIR decisions are taken in full in Commission meetings, with minutes published proactively.
Structural Reforms
- Statutory Codification of ECI Procedures. Amend the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order and related instruments to require that any change to voter registration forms or roll-management software be preceded by public consultation and government notification.
- Decentralise Ecinet Control. Re-empower district election officers with edit and verification rights, subject to audit logs. Central IT should provide infrastructure, not unilateral control.
- Strengthen The Appointment Process. The 2023 law that replaced the collegium (PM, LoP, CJI) with a PM-led committee (PM, LoP, Union Minister) has heightened concerns about executive influence. A bipartisan parliamentary committee should review the appointment mechanism to restore cross-party confidence.
- Judicial Oversight Framework. The Supreme Court should lay down guidelines for judicial review of ECI’s administrative orders—especially those affecting voting rights—ensuring that procedural legality is enforceable without micromanaging operations.
- Citizen Vigil Mechanisms. Mandate that draft rolls be published with searchable, machine-readable data at the booth level, enabling civil society and media to conduct independent audits.
- Media and Civic Education. Invest in sustained civic literacy campaigns that explain how rolls are prepared, how to check entries, and how to file appeals. An informed electorate is the best deterrent to administrative overreach.
Democracy Is Built on Process, Not Narratives
The Indian Express investigation is a breath of fresh air not because it exposes malice, but because it reveals process failures that threaten legitimacy. India’s democratic resilience has always rested on institutions that follow rules, even when inconvenient. The path forward is not to demonise the ECI, but to demand that it return to its constitutional design: collegial, rule-bound, and transparent.
The “Viksit Bharat” dream will remain a nightmare if its building blocks, namely electoral rolls, basic governance, and institutional trust, are compromised. The remedy lies in restoring the referee’s neutrality, one procedure at a time.