The ECI at a Crossroads: From T.N. Seshan's Reforms to a Crisis of Credibility
An examination of the Election Commission of India's institutional journey, the roots of its multi-member structure, and the contemporary challenges that question its autonomy and public trust.
What is the core of the current controversy?
Recent questions about the Election Commission's credibility stem from multiple sources, primarily the new appointment process and concerns over electoral roll management and voting machine integrity. The appointment of CEC Gyanesh Kumar and EC Sukhbir Singh Sandhu in March 2024 under a new law that excludes the Chief Justice of India from the selection panel has drawn significant criticism for potentially increasing executive influence over the ECI.
Further controversy surrounds the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a process for updating electoral rolls. A report in The Hindu highlighted allegations that this process resulted in the exclusion of over 13 crore names from draft rolls, raising fears of disenfranchisement. Civil society groups claim the process lacks transparency and has failed to address complaints, including instances of living voters being marked as deceased. Concurrently, long-standing apprehensions regarding Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) persist. The ECI maintains that EVMs are robust and tamper-proof. However, critics continue to question the adequacy of the audit process, specifically the verification of EVM counts with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips, despite a recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the current verification protocol.
How did the ECI evolve from a single-member to a multi-member body?
The ECI functioned as a single-member body for nearly four decades. The first attempt to change this occurred on October 16, 1989, when the Rajiv Gandhi government appointed two additional ECs. S.K. Mendiratta, a former ECI legal advisor cited by the Indian Express, suggested this was a response to disagreements between the government and then-CEC R.V.S. Peri Sastri. This structure was dismantled in January 1990 by the V.P. Singh government. The idea of a multi-member body, however, had received institutional backing from the Dinesh Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms (1990), which recommended it to allow for a more consultative and consensus-oriented approach.
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