Expert Comment
Why is India’s Election Commission facing a crisis of credibility?
ACLED's India analyst, Pooja George looks at protests against recent electoral changes.
Nearly 130 million voters have been struck from India's electoral rolls under the Election Commission of India's (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a nationwide verification drive that has triggered close to 650 demonstrations since it was announced in 2025, according to ACLED data. The commission is now facing the deepest credibility crisis in its history. An investigative report revealed that two of the three election commissioners formally objected to decisions taken by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on at least 14 occasions over 10 months. Their objections covered how voters were enrolled, the mass deletion and reinstatement of names, the security of the voter register itself, and the legal basis for orders restoring voters to the rolls.
Pooja George, India analyst at conflict and protest monitoring organisation ACLED, said:
“For the ECI, as an autonomous constitutional body whose authority rests on being seen as impartial, a split of this kind at the very top is damaging.”
The protests have been led mainly by opposition parties, which accuse the ECI of managing the revision exercise poorly and of no longer acting independently. Their wider charge is that the SIR is designed to help the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). They point to this year's state elections in West Bengal, where 2.7 million voters were removed from the rolls before polling day, and the BJP went on to achieve a historical electoral win.
“On 25 September, opposition parties staged protests nationwide demanding Kumar’s resignation. The youth-led Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), whose protests forced the Union Education Minister to resign in July 2025, has announced further demonstrations for 2 October. Opposition lawmakers are also preparing a motion in both houses of Parliament to remove Kumar from office. Should any of these efforts succeed, it would be a landmark moment for institutional accountability in the world's largest democracy.” George added.
