In recent times, several members of civil society and opposition parties have voiced concerns about large-scale fraudulent inclusions/deletions of voters' names in electoral rolls, the existence of duplicate Electronic Photo Identity Cards (EPICs), deficiencies in the functioning of EVMs, fraudulent voting in polling booths, etc., in both the Assembly and the Lok Sabha elections. There was a discrepancy between the provisional polling figures and the final polling figures, which resulted in an unusual increase in the number of counted votes.
As early as November 2022, a Citizens’ Commission on Elections headed by a former well-respected judge of the Supreme Court and comprising responsible members of civil society, based on a comprehensive evaluation of the electoral processes, cautioned the Election Commission of India (ECI) about serious shortcomings in different segments of the electoral process and demanded independent social audits to help the ECI enhance the integrity of the same.
The Commission failed to respond to the appeal made by the Citizens' Commission.
Since then, several individuals and civil society organisations, with reference to different aspects of the election process, have made valuable suggestions towards ensuring that elections remain free and fair. But unfortunately, the attitude of the Commission has always been one of defence and even condescending defiance, giving the public an impression that it had no intention whatsoever to hold itself accountable to anyone other than the ruling political establishment.
Last year, when the voters of Markadwadi village in Maharashtra, not satisfied with the way votes had been counted in EVMs in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, planned to hold a “re-election” using ballot papers, the election authorities, instead of contacting them to understand their concerns, deployed force to stop it.
When the Punjab and Haryana High Court, on a petition filed before it, directed the ECI to share all documents related to Haryana Assembly elections, including the CCTV footage of voting in polling booths, the Commission hurriedly amended Rule 93(2) of the Conduct of Election Rules to preclude access to the CCTV recordings, raising concerns about the Commission's commitment to transparency.
In March this year, the West Bengal government pointed out the existence of duplicate EPIC Cards, which the ECI perforce had to confirm.
On the eve of the Delhi elections this year, a senior AAP legislator cited specific instances of fraudulent additions in the Electoral Rolls of Delhi at the instance of one political party's leaders, but the ECI, instead of verifying the factual correctness of it, chose to remain unresponsive.
One of the concerns expressed by several political parties has been that the ECI has not agreed to provide them with Electoral Rolls in a "machine-readable, text-searchable" format to enable them to quickly cross-verify erroneous inclusions/deletions of voters' names and the existence of duplicate EPIC cards. The Commission appears to have taken a firm stand that it would not provide Electoral Rolls in that format on account of cybersecurity concerns. In support of that contention, the Commission had cited a 2019 judgment of the apex court.
When the Leader of Opposition (LOP) held a press conference on 7-8-2025 to highlight the possibility of fraud in the preparation of the Electoral Rolls of Mahadevapura Constituency in Karnataka, he specifically mentioned that, in the absence of a text-searchable version of the Electoral Roll, his team was forced to work hard for six months to examine the hard copy of the Electoral Roll to detect erroneous entries.
As soon as the LOP raised the above-cited concern, the Karnataka Chief Election Officer was reported to have promptly issued a notice to him to submit an affidavit to substantiate his claim. Since then, the Commission has been insisting on the LOP either to file such an affidavit within a month or "apologise."
Soon after the above, there were reports that another Honourable Member of Parliament belonging to the ruling party held yet another press conference in which he had pointed out serious discrepancies in the Electoral Rolls of several Parliamentary Constituencies, including Rae Bareli, Wayanad, Diamond Harbour, Kannauj, Mainpuri, and in the Kolathur Assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu.
These allegations and counter-allegations do not provide comfort to onlooking citizens like us, as they tend to raise serious questions about the integrity of Electoral Rolls in general and about the efficacy and impartiality of the machinery involved in the preparation of Electoral Rolls. More importantly, they raise concerns about the role of the Election Commission itself, as the latter, set up under Article 324 of the Constitution, has the responsibility to conduct elections in a free and fair manner. Irrespective of the election machinery that is directly involved in preparing Electoral Rolls, the Election Commission, as the overarching authority, cannot absolve itself of the shortcomings in the preparation of Electoral Rolls, which constitute the primary foundation on which our democratic system rests. The name of an eligible voter should not be excluded from the Electoral Roll for the constituency in which he resides.
In principle, we see no valid reason as to why the Election Commission, with all the resources at its command, cannot and should not, on its own, consider all such complaints as a part of the much-needed feedback system it ought to put in place, to detect errors and correct them. The LOP, or for that matter anyone similarly placed, who has presented his/her analysis based on authentic data obtained from the Commission itself, cannot be expected to authenticate that data.
Even assuming that the Commission, for an extraordinary reason, has arrogated to itself the authority to demand a complainant to support his/her claim with an affidavit, there is no evidence that the same Commission has similarly demanded that the other Honourable Member of Parliament representing the BJP, who had also raised similar concerns in the case of five Parliamentary Constituencies, should also submit a sworn affidavit with his complaint. There cannot be one law for one complainant and another for another complainant!
Other important questions arise from this:
According to the news report, in the absence of a text-searchable format of the Electoral Roll, the LOP's team had to spend six long months to analyse the occurrence of errors in the Electoral Roll of one constituency, whereas, in the second case, the concerned Member of Parliament seemed to have got a similar analysis carried out in the case of five Parliamentary Constituencies plus one State Legislative Assembly Constituency, evidently within a very short time, with no notice whatsoever issued to him by any of the concerned Chief Election Officers that he should submit a sworn affidavit to substantiate his claim.
Does it imply that the same Commission that took a firm stand on not providing text-searchable versions of Electoral Rolls in general had made an exception in the second case?
Or, did the respected Member in the second-cited case obtain non-text-searchable Electoral Rolls of all those constituencies a long time ago, diligently analyse them for months and come up with several errors detected?
Some investigative reporters seem to have contrived to use software to convert non-text-searchable formats of Electoral Rolls to text-searchable versions and carried out an excellent analysis to highlight large-scale errors in the ongoing Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. If that is feasible, why should the Commission continue to pretend that machine-readable versions raise cybersecurity concerns? If it is a privacy issue, the printout of the electoral rolls given to recognised political parties has the full details, including photos.
In this context, it is important to take note of the fact that the way EVMs are being used today, the Commission does not operate them in combination with totaliser machines, which precludes the mixing of votes across different polling booths, as was being done when paper ballots were used in the past. As a result, the political parties know the booth-wise voting patterns, which in turn permits them to manipulate in such a way that the addition or deletion of a few names in the case of the Electoral Roll for a booth, or even intimidation of voters not likely to vote in their favour, could tilt the election result in their favour.
In view of the above considerations, especially in view of the instance of an apparent inconsistency in the Commission dealing with two different complaints, these instances raise public concerns about the role of the Election Commission itself and its impartiality.
We cite in this connection the apex court's guidelines in a judgment delivered on March 2, 2023 (Anoop Baranwal v Union of India) on the composition of the Committee that selects the members of the Commission and how the political executive had deviated from those guidelines, which in effect has resulted in the members of the Commission having been selected by a Committee dominated by the executive. That in itself has raised public concerns about the impartiality of the Commission.
The effectiveness of the Election Commission as the custodian of free and fair elections depends on the trust it elicits from the public. Any instance that is likely to erode the public trust in its functioning needs to be looked into at the earliest. In order to make sure that the Commission has been functioning in an apolitical, independent manner so as to maintain its public credibility, we would respectfully appeal to your high office to order a judicial enquiry to determine the factual position with respect to the questions posed above and the corrective action needed.
Respectfully,
1. Prof Jagdeep Chhokar, Former Professor of IIM(A)
2. Dr E.A.S. Sarma, Former Secretary to the Government of India
3. Thomas Franco, Former General Secretary AIBOC
4. Teesta Setalvad, Vote for Democracy
5. Parakala Prabhakar, Social Activist
6. Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
7. Pamela Philipose, Journalist
8. Ashok Rao, Patron, National Confederation of Officers Association
9. Jawahar Sircar, Former Member of Parliament
10. Rani Sharma, Heritage activist
11. Dr. Venkatesh Athreya, Economist, Chennai.
12. Prof Sebastian Morris, IIM Retd
13. Prof. Dinesh Abrol, Delhi
