Therewas a time when governments worried about the Election Commission of India. Today, increasingly, the question is whether the Election Commission itself has reason to worry about its credibility.

That is the T N Seshan test.

Seshan, who headed the Election Commission from 1990 to 1996, transformed the institution from a largely invisible constitutional authority into an assertive watchdog that political parties and governments had to reckon with. The Supreme Court itself later set the Seshan benchmark. In November 2022, a five-judge Constitution Bench said a CEC should have “character” and “does not allow himself to be bulldozed”, adding: “There have been numerous CECs and T N Seshan happens once in a while.”

At the Election Commission, he was restricted only by the Constitution and laws enacted by Parliament and answerable to the courts and Parliament — “but otherwise”, he said, “I had a free hand”.

That is the standard against which today’s Election Commission is being judged.

The controversy is no longer confined to Opposition allegations of vote chori. It now involves the Commission’s own internal functioning.

The Indian Express has reported that two of the three Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, recorded at least 14 objections over 10 months to decisions and instructions under Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The issues reportedly included voter additions and deletions, Form 6 and access to electoral-roll data.

The ECI says this interpretation is misleading. Its response is that differing views are normal during institutional deliberation and that all final decisions of the full Commission over the past year, including SIR, were unanimous.

The BJP has seized on that defence. BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi argued that all three Commissioners attended press conferences together and asked why anyone should infer a split when there was no press conference without all three.

But here is the uncomfortable question for Trivedi.

Yes, all three Commissioners may have sat together at press conferences. But who actually answered the questions?

By and large, it was Gyanesh Kumar who spoke, explained and responded to journalists. The other two Commissioners were largely silent, occasionally smiling or listening. A photograph of three Commissioners sitting together cannot by itself demonstrate the independence of three voices.

If Trivedi’s argument is that the presence of three Commissioners proves democratic functioning, he should also answer this: Is democracy merely about all three sitting on the same dais, or does it require each of them to be heard?

If the Commission is genuinely collegial, why not occasionally have all three Commissioners explain their respective views? Why should the CEC alone become the institutional voice on every important controversy?

This matters because the ECI’s credibility depends not merely on unanimity at the end of a process, but on confidence that the process itself permits independent voices to be heard.

That brings us to SIR.

The Special Intensive Revision has become the largest test of that confidence. The Indian Express has reported that more than 13 crore names were struck off draft electoral rolls across 30 States and Union Territories. That does not mean 13 crore eligible voters have been permanently disenfranchised: draft deletions can be challenged and names restored. But the scale of the exercise makes transparency indispensable.

The Opposition has been raising questions about electoral rolls for more than a year.

Rahul Gandhi first made his vote chori charge prominent through allegations concerning Karnataka’s Mahadevapura constituency, where he claimed that more than a lakh votes had been manipulated. The ECI rejected the allegations. The argument subsequently travelled to Aland in Karnataka, Maharashtra’s Rajura and then Haryana, where Gandhi alleged 25 lakh votes were fake or otherwise compromised. The ECI and BJP rejected those charges as well. Bihar brought SIR itself into the centre of the political confrontation.

And this is not the first time the ECI has been accused of watching from the sidelines. During the 2019 Lok Sabha campaign, questions were raised over its response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal in Latur to first-time voters to dedicate their votes to the soldiers who carried out the Balakot air strike and to the Pulwama martyrs. The ECI had earlier advised parties against using the activities of the armed forces for political propaganda, but eventually held that Modi’s speech did not violate the Model Code of Conduct. The episode fuelled the “sleeping umpire” metaphor — an umpire who sees the action but does not blow the whistle.

The point is not that every Rahul Gandhi allegation has been proved. They have not. Nor can electoral outcomes be attributed to alleged manipulation merely because Opposition parties make the charge.

But allegations concerning electoral rolls cannot be disposed of simply as political sour grapes.

The appropriate answer is evidence: deletion records, claims and objections, restoration figures, audit trails, software access and a transparent explanation of how decisions were reached.

The irony is that the BJP is increasingly doing the explaining for the Election Commission.

Why?

The BJP can defend itself against allegations that it benefited from electoral irregularities. But when the question is whether the Election Commission conducted itself properly, the constitutional authority itself should answer.

An institution entrusted with the conduct of elections should not need the ruling party to become its spokesperson.

The ECI says all decisions were unanimous. Fine. Then let the institution demonstrate that unanimity through transparency.

If the 14 objections reported by The Indian Express were merely routine administrative deliberations, publish the context and explain how they were resolved. If the final decisions were unanimous, that should be easy to establish. Silence creates suspicion. Transparency kills it.

That is why Seshan remains relevant.

He was not necessarily right about everything. He was certainly controversial. But he established something invaluable: the perception that the Election Commission belonged to the Constitution, not to the government.

His autobiography records how, as CEC, he regarded himself as answerable to the Constitution, Parliament and the courts, but otherwise to no one.

The Seshan test, therefore, is not whether today’s ECI agrees with the Opposition.

It is whether the ECI can demonstrate, visibly and convincingly, that it does not belong to either the ruling party or the Opposition.

That test has become more urgent because the controversy has moved beyond political speeches. Two Commissioners have reportedly raised objections internally. The Commission says the final decisions were unanimous. The BJP says the existence of deliberations proves democracy. The Opposition says the process has compromised democracy.

Somewhere between these competing claims lies a simple institutional obligation: show the public how the decision was made.

The ECI does not need political defenders.

It needs demonstrable independence.

It needs Commissioners who are not merely present but heard.

It needs answers that come from the constitutional institution itself, not from party headquarters.

And above all, it needs to protect the one asset that cannot be restored by another press conference or another election: public trust.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi often takes pride in describing India as the “mother of democracy”. Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has said that the world watches how India conducts free and fair elections.

Those are not merely phrases for speeches. They carry a constitutional responsibility.

The ruling party and the Election Commission must remember that they owe their authority to “We, the People of India” — that is, Bharat.

The voter is supreme. The vote is supreme. Governments derive their power from that vote. Political parties can campaign, governments can govern and institutions can administer — but none of them owns the voter.

The Election Commission cannot be the government’s commission, the Opposition’s commission or anybody’s commission except the Constitution’s.

Nor can it, in public perception, become a selection committee for the party in power.

The real vote of confidence is not taken in Parliament. It is cast by the voter. And that is a vote the Election Commission cannot afford to lose.

(The columnist is a Mumbai-based author and independent media veteran, running websites and a youtube channel, and known for his thought-provoking messaging)

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