Is Indian election a mockery of democracy?

By M L Satyan

Coimbatore, Aug 8, 2025: Present day election system in India has always disturbed me. The alarming factors are: discrepancies in the electoral rolls, tampering of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and the recent Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar.

During the parliamentary election in 2019 and the assembly election in 2023 in Karnataka I was living in Bengaluru. During these elections my wife was deprived of her voting right. What happened? In my ward, many Christian names were removed from the voter list. My wife’s name is Joyce. In my apartment also two other Christian names were missing in the voter list. My name is Satyan and hence my name remained.

We reported our grievance to the concerned election officers. But they did nothing about it. Later, we heard that similar thing – deletion of Christian names from the voter list – happened in other wards of Bengaluru. There was a purposeful effort on the part of BJP to deprive Christians of their voting rights.

I now hear about various types of manipulations being done during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar. The Election Commission of India (ECI) began SIR of Bihar state’s electoral rolls on July 01, 2025 four months prior to the state elections. The controversy behind this decision can now be heard in the parliament with the monsoon session going on.

The SIR’s effort is to “ensure that no eligible citizen is left out while no ineligible person is included in the Electoral Roll.” As per the notification, the new electoral roll will only be released after claims and objections have been resolved. The decided date for the release of the final electoral roll is set on September 30. Approximately 65 lakh voters are expected to be removed from the list.

One of the senior journalists and YouTuber Mr. Ajit Anjum travelled to various parts of Bihar during the first phase of SIR. Now, EC has released the first “draft voter list”. Ajit Anjum, in his field visit report and in the EC report, has pointed out certain major discrepancies:

a) As per EC every person who fills the form has to get an acknowledgement. Ajit Anjum’s interview with people revealed the fact that most of the voters never got any acknowledgement.
b) The staff involved in verification filled thousands of forms on their own.
c) Hundreds of dead persons names are found in the draft voter list.
d) Names of many living persons are missing in the list.
e) The voter list shows that 200 people living in house no.3 at Jamui. In another place 65 people are living in house no.1
f) At one village majority voters have the same name.
g) Another surprising point is that in many voters’ lists the voter’s name and father’s name were same. Zero was mentioned as address.

All these discrepancies prove how the EC can fool the people and take them for a ride. During his TV debate with Mr. Ashok Lavasa, Ex-Election Commissioner and Mr. Yogendra on the SIR in Bihar, Mr. Kapil Sibal said, “SIR means Special Irresponsible Revision”.

Rahul Gandhi’s presentation at a Press Conference on August 07 with the topic – “Democracy Destroyed” exposed various malpractices in the electoral rolls. To prove his stand, he gave the examples of Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha and Assembly segment of Mahadevapura in Bengaluru.

Bitter Reality

• Today the Election Commission, an autonomous body, has seemingly become a ‘puppet’ in the hands of the ruling government. Be it state-level or national-level election, the EC is seen favouring the ruling party and its alliances.

• The EC has utterly failed to stop fake voters. During the last parliamentary election in Kerala, it was found that 4.5 lakhs voters had fake voter IDs. Each one had 3 to 4 voter IDs making them eligible to vote in multiple constituencies.

• In many states, old voter lists were followed in which many dead people’s names were present and the living people’s names were missing. Many such cases emerged in Tamil Nadu during the last parliamentary election in 2024.

• The Congress MP Mr. Chidambaram mentioned in his recent press release that 6.5 lakhs voters from Bihar are being enrolled in voter list in Tamil Nadu.

Voters fooled: In every election the EC claims to seize crores of rupees, gold and silver items. The ‘culture of freebies’ dehumanises the people. During the last parliamentary election the EC claimed to have seized 428 crores of rupees in Tamil Nadu. In Maharashtra too huge sum of money was seized. What about the unseized money/gift materials?

Today the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) has become the talk in every nook and corner of the country. Reports about their tampering are galore and doubts have been expressed about their reliability. Every election has witnessed manipulations and misuses of EVMs. Yet, neither the Election Commission nor the Judiciary has taken note of the proven evidences of EVM manipulations and initiated the ban of EVM and bring back the ballot system.

Horse-trading has become common.

Sadly, the anti-defection law has been silent. If horse-trading is permitted despite the anti-defection law, then, why should there be an election? Why should people vote and for what? Instead of an election there could be a ‘public auction’ of party candidates. The highest bidder can buy as many candidates as possible and be declared as the winner. The powerful buyer will form the government with his ‘purchased candidates’. This will save people’s time, money and energy.

In today’s election system there is no guarantee that my vote goes to the candidate of my choice. We are also not sure whether the elected candidate will remain in the same party till the end of his/her tenure. Horse-trading is a serious betrayal of trust. Many educated people have stopped voting due to the above reasons. This answers to the low voting ratio. So, election in India continues to remain as a mockery of democracy.