Election Commission of India | Crisis of credibility

For months, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has fought Opposition allegations of “vote chori” and rejected claims that its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls placed an unconstitutional burden on vulnerable citizens. On September 23, a report in The Indian Express brought the credibility battle to Nirvachan Sadan itself. Two of the three election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, reportedly recorded objections at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions and orders they said were taken without their knowledge, asking who had authorised them. The ECI, on its part, through two press notes, said that all decisions related to the SIR were unanimous, though it did not respond to some of the other allegations in the newsreport.