Why the India survey instructor faces a credibility test

The India Electoral Commission (ECI), one of the most reliable public institutions in the world’s greatest democracy, faces a credibility test.

In recent weeks, he has aligned a series of opposition allegations, ranging from electoral fraud and manipulation to inconsistencies in the electoral lists. He denied it all.

The opposition leaders, who have organized massive demonstrations against the ECI in recent days, said they were considering a request for dismissal aimed at withdrawing the commissioner in the elections of his post. They had not filed the motion by Thursday, the last day of the Mosson session of Parliament, and currently do not have the figures to see it.

In the meantime, Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the principal congress of the opposition party of India, launched a 16 -day and 1,300 km (807 miles) march – known as the Adhikar Yatra voting (March of voters’ rights) – in the state of Bihar to protest against ECI, marking a dramatic escalation in the political struggle. The Bihar, which should vote in a key election of state later this year, was in the midst of an animated controversy on a recent revision of the electoral lists.

Gandhi first did the flight allegations in August, accusing the ECI of collusion with the Governor Party of Bharatiya Janata (BJP) to rig the 2024 general elections.

Using granular data from the ECI’s own files, he allegedly alleged that a parliamentary district in the state of southern Karnataka had more than 100,000 voters, including double voters, non -valid addresses and loose inscriptions in unique places.

The ECI has repeatedly called “false and deceptive” claims. And the BJP strongly denied these allegations, the leader Anurag Thakur saying that the congress and the opposition had gathered to make these “baseless affirmations” because they provided a loss to the Bihar.

Gandhi’s press conference took place because the controversy in the Bihar was raging.

The intensive special revision (SIR) occurred between June and July, the ECI saying that its representatives visited every 78.9 million Bihar voters for verification.

The ECI says that this has been done to update the lists of voters after more than 20 years, but the opposition leaders say that the process can have deprived tens of thousands of people, especially migrants, because of the haste with which it was carried out and the expensive documentation required as proof.

After the publication of a list of list updated on August 1, several reports, notably by the BBC, highlighted the errors in the count, such as bad sex and the photos attributed to the names of people and the died on the lists.

The new draft provisions have 72.4 million names – 6.5 million less than before, the Commission claiming that omissions include double, deceased and migrant voters. Those who believe that their names have been put wrong were given until September 1 to appeal.

Meanwhile, criticism has also intensified on how the ECI published the names of the 6.5 million people who were excluded from the provisions.

The opposition parties asked why the Commission set up digitized physical copies, rather than lists read by machine of omitted voters, which could be verified independently by analysts and political parties.

Finally, the High Level Tribunal of India told the ECI to publish a consultable list of voters and also state the reasons for their exclusion.

The intervention of the Court highlighted the “procedural failures” of the ECI and must be considered as a “rap on the joints”, said an editorial of the first Hindu newspaper.

In the midst of growing criticism, ECI held a rare press conference on weekends on August 17 to combat some of the allegations.

“If you use terms such as voting theft and misleading citizens, then how would you call that, apart from an insult to the Constitution of India?” The chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said, referring to the allegations of Gandhi.

He quoted a judgment of the 2019 Supreme Court to say that the request for the opposition of lists of voters readable by machine could encroach on people’s privacy.

He also demanded that Gandhi will give an oaths under oath proving his allegations, to excuse the nation for his remarks.

But instead of resting the case, declarations have sparked new indignation, certain opposition politicians accusing Kumar to avoid answering specific questions or providing unsatisfactory explanations.

Pawan Khera of the Congress Party told the BBC Hindi that Kumar’s “opponent” at the press conference had seemed “as if a BJP chief spoke”.

Experts say that by themselves, the allegations of Gandhi, or the fact that millions of new voters have been added or withdrawn from the roles of Bihar, do not prove any reprehensible act.

“When the list of voters is verified intensively, such large differences in many do not occur,” the former commissioner in the Gopalaswami elections at the BBC Tamil told.

Gopalaswami added that when the electoral list of the state of southern Karnataka was revised in 2008, some 5.2 million voters were removed, nearly a million people who were added.

He also agreed with ECI’s request for an affidavit signed by Gandhi, saying that the response to allegations without written complaint establishes a bad preceding for the institution.

But with the walking on the rights of Gandhi voters and the bihar elections that are looming, it is unlikely that the question will disappear.

“Whatever the electoral commission, the opposition will certainly make a problem in the next Bihar elections,” said the main journalist Smita Gupta to the Hindi BBC.

In the meantime, there are more important concerns about the game regarding the impact of all this on public confidence in the ECI.

“The confidence that the ECI has once ordered almost undoubtedly is now under a more general public exam,” wrote the former commissioner in chief elections Syi Qurai in the Indian Express newspaper.

He added that if “the procedural architecture of transparency during the elections remains in place … The perception of impartiality is as important as its reality. Strengthening this confidence is as crucial as to ensure technical precision”.

According to a survey published this month by Lokniti, a research program at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), however, confidence in the ECI has dropped sharply.

The agency head, Sanjay Kumar, was separately in the Reticule of the ECI and the BJP after having apologized to share poor data on the participation rate in the state of the Maharashtra, but his conclusions in other states indicate a deficit of growing confidence with the ECI.

In the six states interviewed by CSDS in 2025, the number of people who had no confidence in the EC had increased sharply compared to 2019 – in the Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India, it increased from 11% to 31% during the period.

This systematic erosion, Mr. Kumar told News News Portal, “should be great concern” for the Commission.

“It is not only the confidence of the opposition that has dropped, it is also confidence among the people who have dropped. The data clearly indicates that,” said Kumar.

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