Why the Voting Monitor in India faces a test of credibility

The Indian Election Committee (ECI), one of the most trusted public institutions in the largest democracy in the world, faces a test of its credibility.

Over the last few weeks, she has put a number of accusations from the opposition, ranging from fraud with voters and manipulation to non -compliance in polling roles. She denied all this.

The leaders of the opposition, who have held huge protests against the ECI in recent days, said they were considering a request for an impeachment to eliminate the Chief Commissioner for election from his position. They had not filed the proposal until Thursday, the last day of the Messon Parliament session, and they have no numbers at the moment to see it.

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the main congress of the opposition party in India, launches a 16 -day, 1300 km (807 miles) March – known as Voter Adhikar Jatra (Voter Marsh) – in the Bihar country to protest the ECI, marking a dramatic escalation in the political battle. Bihar who is to vote in key government elections later this year is in the middle of heated disputes with regard to recent audit of electoral rollers.

Gandhi for the first time made the allegations of voting In August, accusing ECI of collusion with the ruling Bharatiya Janata (BJP) party to organize the overall elections in 2024.

Using detailed data from ECI’s own records, he claims that a parliamentary constituency in the southern country Karnakak has more than 100,000 counterfeit voters, including duplicate voters, invalid addresses and registrations in single seats.

The ECI repeatedly calls the claims “false and misleading”. And BJP categorically denied these claims, such as leader Anurag Takur reference Congress and the opposition gathered to make these “unfounded claims” because they expected a loss in Bihar.

Gandhi’s press conference was held as the Bihar dispute raged.

The special intense revision (sir) happened between June and July, with the ECI saying that its representatives visited all 78.9 million Bihar voters to check.

The ECI says this has been done to update the voter lists after more than 20 years, but opposition leaders say the process may have discouraged tens of thousands, especially migrants, because of the speed with which it was conducted and the burden documentation is required as evidence.

After a project of the updated list was published on August 1, several reports, including from the BBCUnderlined errors in the number, such as the wrong gender and photos assigned to the names of the people and the dead roller voters.

The new role drafts have 72.4 million names – 6.5 million less than before, with the committee saying that the gaps include a duplicate, died and migrant voters. Those who believe that their names were missed were given until September 1 for appeal.

Meanwhile, criticism has also been strengthened by the way the ECI has published the names of 6.5 million people who were excluded from the Raley project.

Opposition parties have asked why the Commission is posting scanned physical copies, not machine -readable lists of missed voters who could be checked regardless of analysts and political parties.

After all, the best court in India told the ECI to publish a voter search list and also to indicate the reasons for their shutdown.

Court intervention emphasized the ECI’s “procedural failures” and should be regarded as “RAP on the bones”, editorial He said in the leading Hindu newspaper.

Against the background of increasing criticism, ECI held a rare weekend Press conference On August 17, to deal with some of the claims.

“If you use conditions such as votes theft and mislead citizens, then what else would you call this besides the insult to the India Constitution?” The Chief Commissioner for Election, Genesh Kumar, said, citing Gandhi’s allegations.

He quoted a decision by the Supreme Court in 2019 to say that the request of the opposition for machine -readed lists of voters can affect people’s confidentiality.

He also asked Gandhi to either an application under an oath proving his allegations, or to apologize to the nation for his remarks.

But instead of raising the issue of rest, statements have caused more outrage, with some opposition politicians blaming Kumar either to avoid answering specific questions or providing unsatisfactory explanations.

Pawan Kchera from the Congress Party told BBC Hindi that Kumar’s “race tone” at the press conference seems to “seem to be the BJP leader talking.”

Experts say that Gandhi’s allegations or the fact that millions of new voters have been added or removed from roles in Bihar does not prove any misconduct.

“When the list of voters is intensively checked, such big differences in numbers are required to arise,” former Chief Commissioner for Election N Gopalaswami told BBC Tamil.

G -Gopalaswami added that when the southern Karnakaka roller was revised in 2008, about 5.2 million voters were removed, with nearly one million people applying again.

He also agreed with the ECI’s request for a Gandy declaration signed, stating that the response to the allegations without a written complaint set a bad precedent for the institution.

But with the hike of the rights of the voters of Gandhi and the Bihar elections, the question is unlikely to die.

“Whatever the election committee says, the opposition will definitely make it a problem in the upcoming Bihar elections,” senior journalist Smita Gupta told BBC Hindi.

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

“The trust that Eki once commanded almost undeniably is now under more public control,” writes the former Chief Commissioner for his election Kuraishi in the Indian Express newspaper.

He added that while “procedural architecture for the transparency of election remains in force … The perception of impartiality is as important as its reality as it is as decisive as the provision of technical accuracy.”

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

The head of the Sanjay Kumar agency is separate at the crossing of the ECI and BJP after he has apologized for sharing the wrong data on Maharashtra’s turnout, but his findings in other countries indicate an increasing deficit of confidence with ECI.

In all six states interviewed by CSDS in 2025, the number of people who do not trust in the EC has increased sharply since 2019 – in Uttar Pradesh, the most populated country in India, it has increased from 11% to 31% in the period.

This systematic erosion, said G -n Kumar Wire News Portal, “must worry” about the committee.

“Not only the confidence of the opposition has fallen, but also the trust among the people, which has decreased. The data clearly shows that,” said G -n Kumar.

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