Alarm Bells for India’s Elections

Electoral Democracy? An Inquiry into the Fairness and Integrity of Elections in India is a book that highlights key issues regarding the deteriorating electoral system in India and suggests changes in policies and processes. The book has emerged out of the work of the Citizens’ Commission on Elections (CCE), a nine-member group comprising jurists, academics, acti­vists, journalists, and former civil servants that has examined the fairness and integrity of elections to the Parliament and state legislatures in India. The CCE identified mentors for key themes, who prepared the book based on published
papers, replies to right to information (RTI) applications, depositions, etc. The contributors of the book include some members of the CCE, the mentors as well as other authors.

The key concern of the book is the erosion of electoral practices in recent years. This book nails down the specific areas of erosion. It also highlights the role of the government, political parties, media and importantly, the Election Commission of India (ECI) in not stemming, and even facilitating, the rot. The goal app­ears to be to push for a reversal of this decline, and several suggestions about how this can be achieved are provided.