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New Delhi: The massive scandal engulfing Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar goes far beyond administrative dysfunction or his personal misconduct as documented internal dissents by fellow commissioners, opaque voter roll deletions under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), control over a centralised voter database and an appointment process engineered for executive capture reveal a political capture of the Election Commission of India (ECI). Without an impartial poll body, electoral victories lose democratic meaning and imperil the future of Indian democracy.

Why do the recent revelations about Gyanesh directly undermine Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s democratic legitimacy?

Why do the recent revelations about Gyanesh directly undermine Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s democratic legitimacy?

Democratic legitimacy depends on whether citizens could vote under rules administered by an independent referee, with equal access to the system of voting and meaningful capacity to challenge exclusion. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political power comes from democratic legitimacy secured by winning free and fair elections.

When the ECI’s own members have repeatedly objected to the handling of voter registration, deletions, restorations and database access – and the CEC refuses full disclosure – the credibility of the process producing Modi’s mandate is directly implicated and his electoral mandate cannot be considered an authentic expression of popular sovereignty.

Academic literature clarifies why leaders with autocratic tendencies continue to hold elections rather than abolishing them. Scholars such as Andreas Schedler and Adam Przeworski note that elections in such regimes are designed to co-opt elites, measure the strength of the opposition and project a necessary facade of democratic legitimacy to both domestic and international audiences.

Also read: What Happens If CEC Gyanesh Kumar Goes?

When the electoral machinery is centralised and controlled, as witnessed in the current ECI controversy, elections cease to be a fair contest. They transform into an administrative exercise in power retention, weaponising the architecture of democracy to sustain non-democratic authority.

Moreover, the opposition’s warning that compromised voter lists yield illegitimate legislative majorities directly challenges the legality of every executive order, constitutional amendment and statute passed by this regime. The claims of vote chori (theft) by the leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi were previously dismissed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a case of sour grapes but they stand validated by recent revelations.

A mandate may remain legally operative, but it loses democratic credibility when the public cannot trust the referee who certified it. To put it simply, when the referee is partisan, the winner’s trophy carries zero moral and constitutional authority, leaving Modi in control of executive power without democratic legitimacy.

But haven’t numerous global democratic indices placed Modi in the same playbook of managed or........

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