For several decades since 1951, during conduct of elections, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has faced a lot of criticisms especially from politicians but it has managed to stay largely unscathed mainly as it made every effort to remain accountable. The ECI performs a thankless job and so in order to ensure free and fair elections it is crucial that the poll body remains independent. In the recent decades, the reputation of the ECI has suffered largely due to the overpowering influence of the government during electioneering. When electioneering begins for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, probably sometime in the month of April, there is bound to be many complaints raised. In the previous election in 2019, the ECI had chosen to ignore complaints against ruling party members who violated the Model Code of Conduct(MCC). It has been an open secret for some time that the poll body was unable to enforce its own guidelines. The MCC had been often flouted with impunity but the ECI took note only on selective cases and imposed a token ban on campaigning by leaders, who then repeat the offence. In the 2019 parliamentary elections in 2019, the ECI came under scrutiny and also attack for the alleged bias in favour of those ruling party members. The way the ECI handled the election showed the nadir that the poll body had sunk to. This had compelled 64 retired civil servants backed by seasoned academics and retired military personnel, to accuse the ECI, then under Anil Arora of glaring bias in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The signatories alleged that the 2019 election was \u201cone of the least free and fair elections that the country has had in the past three decades\u201d. The group of 64 accused ECI of blatant acts of omission and commission that had compelled former CECs to reluctantly, question the decisions of the ECI. On March 15,2021 the Citizens\u2019 Commission on Elections (CCE), chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur, which examines critical aspects of conducting elections, released the second part of its report. CCE cited the decision of then CEC James Michael Lyngdoh in 2002, who refused to hold elections in riot-torn Gujarat even after then BJP chief minister Narendra Modi dissolved the house and sought elections. CCE pointed this as an instance where the ECI proved its independence. The CCE report red-flagged 2019 as the flashpoint from whence \u201cgrave doubts\u201d were raised about the freedom and fairness of India\u2019s general elections- the world\u2019s largest democratic exercise. The CCE alleged that the ECI was drifting away from Article 324, which gives the ECI plenipotentiary powers to steer the electoral process. Electoral reform can only begin with the way the officials- the Chief Election Commissioner(CEC) and Election Commissioners(ECs) are chosen. The CEC and ECs are selected by a panel comprising of the prime minister, the leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha and the CJI. However against the ruling of the Supreme Court in March 2023, the government passed a bill on December 21,2023 wherein, the CJI was dropped from the three-member committee and was replaced by a union cabinet minister. Sadly, democracy in India is today all about the power of majority- in religion, parliament, control over majority of media, the central agencies etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For several decades since 1951, during conduct of elections, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has faced a lot of criticisms especially from politicians but it has managed to stay largely unscathed mainly as it made every effort to remain accountable. The ECI performs a thankless job and so in order to ensure free and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-403877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}