I have no objection to Rahul Gandhi questioning the Election Commission of India. Scrutinising powerful institutions is part of his job as Leader of the Opposition. What I object to is the now-familiar Congress method: raise legitimate procedural questions, inflate them into a sweeping indictment and then treat indignation as proof.
The latest quarrel concerns the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and reports of differences within the three-member Commission. The opposition has demanded the Chief Election Commissioner’s resignation, a pause in the revision exercise and even judicial intervention. As The Economic Times reported, the demands arrived rapidly once disagreement inside the Commission became public.
That sequence matters. An internal disagreement is not evidence of a stolen election. It is evidence that a collegial body had an internal disagreement. The distinction is elementary, yet much of the INDIA alliance’s rhetoric depends on erasing it.
The reported objections do justify questions about how the Commission reaches decisions and records dissent. They may expose weak procedure, poor internal coordination or an over-mighty chair. Each possibility deserves investigation on its own terms. None automatically proves that an electoral result was manufactured for the BJP. To cross that distance, the opposition must connect a disputed instruction to identifiable changes on electoral rolls, show that those changes were wrongful and demonstrate that they were systematic rather than clerical or random. Without that chain, the accusation remains a hypothesis.
Dissent inside an institution is not institutional collapse
I would be more worried if every Election Commissioner appeared to agree instantly on every consequential question. Independent officials are supposed to test one another’s reasoning. Notes of caution, alternative interpretations and arguments over implementation can indicate that an institution is functioning, not that it has been captured.
There is also a difference between disagreement over a draft and dissent from a final order. That distinction cannot be resolved by slogans from either camp. The Commission should disclose whether concerns were accepted, modified or rejected, and whether all three commissioners approved the eventual decision. If the objection changed the policy, that is evidence of internal scrutiny working. If it was bypassed while an order was issued in the Commission’s name, that is a serious governance problem. The records, not partisan inference, should settle which description fits.
The Commission subsequently said decisions connected with the revision were taken unanimously, according to India Today. That claim does not end the matter, and the photograph of three commissioners seated together was no substitute for a detailed explanation. The ECI should publish a clear chronology: what concerns were raised, what safeguards were adopted, how disputed cases are reviewed and what data will let citizens evaluate exclusions and corrections. Its own official website should become the definitive repository for those answers rather than leaving voters to reconstruct policy through partisan press conferences.
This is my specific criticism of the institution—and, indirectly, of a government whose political interests are damaged when constitutional bodies communicate poorly. In today’s climate, terseness looks evasive. The BJP should want radical procedural transparency because suspicion thrives where documentation is thin. Defending the Commission with television combat alone merely turns an administrative dispute into a party contest.
Yet the opposition’s leap remains indefensible. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra invoked treachery while opposition figures demanded the CEC’s departure. Those are grave conclusions. They require evidence that officials deliberately subverted an election, not merely evidence that commissioners debated the design or implementation of roll revision.
Electoral rolls need maintenance, not mythology
Voter lists are not sacred manuscripts delivered complete and error-free. People die, relocate, register twice or discover mistakes in their details. A democracy must continuously update its rolls, and any serious party knows this because its booth workers spend election season checking them. The real policy questions are whether eligible voters receive adequate notice, whether documentation requirements are reasonable, whether claims and objections are accessible, and whether corrections can be audited.
For me, the practical test is simple. A lawful revision should make it easier to remove ineligible entries without making an eligible citizen prove the impossible. Notices must reach the person affected; reasons should be intelligible; hearings should be real rather than ceremonial; and an appeal should be available before an election makes the error irreversible. Aggregate numbers should be published at useful geographic levels so unusual patterns can be spotted. Parties should receive records in a form they can examine, while personal data remains protected. These are safeguards both government and opposition ought to support.
Those are concrete questions. Congress could identify constituencies, publish verified samples of wrongful exclusion, demonstrate a systematic pattern and pursue remedies through the courts and the Commission. Instead, its national messaging too often begins at the final allegation: the institution is compromised, the referee is partisan, the result is suspect.
A persuasive case would separate error from intent. A misspelled address, a duplicate record and a deletion made without notice are not interchangeable failures. The first may be corrected administratively, the second may show the revision doing its job, and the third may violate due process. Congress should classify the cases it has, state how the sample was obtained and invite independent examination. If a pattern disproportionately affects particular areas, it should show the comparison and methodology. That would turn political suspicion into a claim capable of being tested and remedied.
This habit is politically convenient. It converts the hard work of understanding defeat into a morality play in which Congress is eternally virtuous and every institution that disappoints it becomes illegitimate. The party can then avoid less glamorous questions about organisation, candidate selection, alliances and booth-level mobilisation. The BJP’s response—that Congress should examine why it loses—is partisan, but it is not frivolous.
The cost is larger than one news cycle. When every controversy is described as the death of democracy, voters are asked to live permanently at maximum alarm. Some eventually tune out; others conclude that elections matter only when their preferred party wins. An opposition that hopes to govern should be building confidence in its capacity to correct institutions, not teaching the public that every institution is beyond repair. Restraint would not weaken Congress’s case. It would make the strongest evidence harder to dismiss.
Nor should anyone accept the lazy claim that criticism of Congress amounts to demanding blind faith in the ECI. I am asking for the opposite: verification instead of theatre. The Commission should release enough material for specialists, parties and ordinary voters to test its account. If exclusions occurred, they must be corrected quickly. If officials ignored recorded objections, the public deserves to know why. If the opposition possesses evidence of deliberate manipulation, it should place that evidence before the country in a form that can survive scrutiny.
Congress cannot outsource persuasion to outrage
The INDIA alliance increasingly treats maximal language as a substitute for a cumulative case. A procedural concern becomes an assault on democracy; an institutional disagreement becomes a rupture; an adverse decision becomes proof of capture. Friendly commentators then repeat the most dramatic interpretation until allegation and established fact blur together.
There is a democratic reason to insist on proportion. A resignation demand is not merely a request for clarification; it is a judgment that an official has lost the right to remain in office. That judgment may become warranted, but it should follow disclosure, examination and a chance to answer. Otherwise the standard becomes impossible to apply consistently: any leaked disagreement can be converted into proof of guilt, and any institution can be paralysed by the most severe interpretation of an unfinished internal debate.
This may energise people already convinced that every BJP victory is suspicious. It is less useful for persuading voters who want to know precisely what happened to a particular name on a particular roll. They can distinguish between a grievance and a demonstration. They also notice when parties defend the Election Commission after favourable results and denounce it after unfavourable ones.
The government and BJP should resist their own temptation to dismiss every complaint as sabotage. A confident ruling party benefits from clean rolls, accessible appeals and exhaustive disclosure. It should press for those standards without trying to speak on behalf of the Commission. Institutional independence is strengthened when the ECI explains itself, not when party spokesmen explain it for the ECI.
But the burden attached to an accusation must remain with the accuser. Rahul Gandhi is entitled to ask hard questions. He is not entitled to have his conclusion accepted before presenting the chain of evidence. Give voters documents, affected names, verifiable patterns and a legally coherent argument. Until then, demanding a resignation is not democratic vigilance. It is another attempt to make outrage do the work that opposition politics has neglected.
