What should have been one of Parliament's most consequential debates on electoral reforms and the integrity of India's democratic processes ended up as a mere round of political crossfire. Parliament, on Tuesday and Wednesday, was witness to loud exchanges, sharp accusations and defensive counter-statements, but scarcely any substantive dialogue on how to actually strengthen India's electoral architecture.
The debate began with high expectations. Over the past months, concerns over voter roll deletions, the opacity of political funding, questions about the independence of the Election Commission and the ongoing nationwide Special Intensive Revision (SIR) had set the stage for a serious legislative conversation. Opposition parties hoped that this would compel a discussion on systemic lapses and that the government would seek to project confidence in the electoral system and its management. But what emerged was almost a predictable script, where political blame overshadowed policy reform.
At the centre of the storm was Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's assertion that the Election Commission had been captured and that vote chori was being facilitated through voter roll manipulation and institutional bias. He cited citizen complaints from several states about large-scale deletions during revision of electoral rolls, arguing that the integrity of the voter list, the bedrock of elections, was increasingly in doubt.
These allegations were promptly countered by the Treasury benches. The senior-most BJP leaders accused the Opposition of undermining constitutional institutions, insisting that the EC was independent and professional. They insisted that the government had strengthened the electoral process on several counts, including technological advancement, faster dispute resolution, and tighter monitoring mechanisms.
But behind the loud rhetoric on both sides was a noticeable absence—concrete proposals for reform.
The debate did not examine the structural bottlenecks that persistently affect voter registration and deletion. India’s voter rolls are still prone to inaccuracy in the absence of an integrated population register, extreme inter-state migration, and patchy implementation of verification guidelines. Despite pressing demands from several parties for a transparent audit mechanism, the House did not debate what the contours of a better verification process may look like, or how to fashion a regime that combines accuracy with inclusivity.
Equally missing was any attention to the raging controversy over political funding. After the Supreme Court had struck down the electoral bonds scheme earlier this year, there has been a strident call for a new, transparent model for funding political parties. Yet, in the two-day debate, neither the government nor the Opposition articulated the contours of a cleaner funding system. There was no debate on capping corporate contributions, ensuring real-time public disclosures, and setting up an independent audit framework.
Even the current Special Intensive Revision across the country became a political football. Parties used this to accuse one another of manipulating voter rolls for electoral gain, while the House did not meaningfully address the real administrative challenges on the ground.
The missed opportunities were stark. Electoral reforms form the backbone of democratic legitimacy, yet the political establishment continues to treat them as an arena for point-scoring rather than policymaking. India stands at a moment where electoral trust is increasingly contested, and allegations of institutional capture, voter suppression, and funding opacity have eroded public confidence. A robust debate could have paved the way for modernising the electoral system, much like the reforms of 2003 or the introduction of EVMs and VVPATs did in previous decades.
Instead, Parliament delivered rhetoric without reform.
As the country heads into a new electoral cycle, it will be costly not to have consensus reform in place. Unless the flawed voter rolls are corrected, there are institutional checks on the EC, full transparency in political funding, and a predictable legal framework for delimitation, the electoral credibility of India will remain a contentious issue. The debate in Parliament showed that both sides are ready to fight over the politics of elections, but not yet to fix the system running them.