India’s Election Commission was created to ensure that political competition does not become a contest over who controls the machinery of the contest itself. The developments surrounding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar suggest that this principle is now facing a test that extends well beyond the controversy over electoral rolls. At the centre is the Special Intensive Revision of voter lists. Removing dead, duplicate or otherwise ineligible names is an essential administrative task.

But an electoral roll is not merely a database to be periodically cleaned. Behind every entry is a citizen’s right to participate in choosing a government. When millions of names disappear, even legitimately, the process requires safeguards strong enough to distinguish administrative correction from wrongful exclusion as they can alter citizens’ ability to exercise a basic democratic right. What has transformed the controversy into an institutional crisis, however, is what has been reported from within the Commission itself. The two other Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, are reported to have objected repeatedly to decisions concerning the revision and other electoral processes. The........

© The Statesman