Make an assessment of the role of the Election Commission of India in the conduct of free and fair elections. (2011, 30 Marks)
Free and fair elections are part of the basic structure (Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain, 1975), and Article 324 makes the Election Commission of India (ECI) their guarantor. Its role is best judged against Pippa Norris’s idea of electoral integrity across the whole cycle: rolls, campaign, polling and count. On that test the ECI has mastered polling day but is weakest where fairness is now decided, before and outside it.
The role across the electoral cycle
| Stage | ECI instrument | Contribution to fairness |
|---|---|---|
| Registration | EPIC cards (from 1993), SVEEP voter education (from 2009), National Voters’ Day | Women’s turnout exceeded men’s in 2019 and 2024; home voting for voters over 85 and persons with disabilities |
| Candidate information | Affidavits on criminal cases, assets and education after ADR (2002) and PUCL (2003) | Voters’ right to know under Art. 19(1)(a) made operational |
| Campaign | Model Code of Conduct, with its 1979 section restraining the party in power; expenditure observers; the cVIGIL complaint app | Curbs misuse of official machinery; record seizures of cash, liquor and drugs in 2024 |
| Polling | EVMs, VVPAT, central forces, webcasting | Booth capture and invalid votes virtually ended |
| Count | Counting in hours | Results accepted; peaceful alternation in 1977, 1989, 2004 and 2014 |
Three features explain this record:
- Scale under adversity. The first election (1951–52) enfranchised about 173 million people, most of whom could not read a ballot; party symbols made universal franchise workable. In 2024 the electorate approached 98 crore.
- Legal creativity. Mohinder Singh Gill (1978) let the ECI draw on Art. 324 wherever the law was silent: countermanding polls, transferring officials, regulating advertising.
- Social meaning. Mukulika Banerjee (Why India Votes?, 2014) shows the polling booth as a space of rare equality, which helps explain why poorer Indians vote at least as readily as the prosperous.
Assessment: where the role stops
Enforcement without sanction.
- The MCC has no statutory force. Its heaviest penalties are short campaign bans, such as those on Yogi Adityanath (72 hours) and Mayawati (48 hours) in April 2019, imposed only after the Supreme Court questioned the Commission’s inaction.
- Under Indian National Congress v. Institute of Social Welfare (2002) the ECI cannot deregister a party, so shell parties survive as tax-exempt conduits.
Money and muscle.
- Explanation 1 to Section 77 of the RP Act, 1951 excludes party spending from the candidate’s ceiling, so the ceiling binds almost nobody.
- Milan Vaishnav (When Crime Pays, 2017) shows parties prize candidates who can fund their own campaigns, and money power remains untamed.
- 46% of Lok Sabha members elected in 2024 declared criminal cases: disclosure has informed voters without deterring parties.
The information environment.
- The 2019 Voluntary Code of Ethics with social-media platforms is persuasion, not regulation, and deepfakes have outrun takedown timelines.
Trust in the referee.
- The Special Intensive Revision in Bihar (2025) left about 65 lakh names off the draft roll, and the Supreme Court had to order the deletions disclosed.
- The Court upheld the SIR in May 2026, but the opposition’s “vote theft” charge shows how a roll exercise became a legitimacy crisis.
- Delayed release of absolute turnout figures in 2024 fed similar suspicion.
Conclusion
The ECI has secured procedural integrity: the vote is cast freely and counted honestly, a rare achievement in the postcolonial world. Substantive fairness is different. It depends on money, information and rolls, where the Commission’s powers are thinnest and its discretion least accountable. A statutory MCC, power to deregister parties, a ceiling on party spending and transparent roll revision would carry its role from the booth to the whole cycle.