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India's Supreme Court on Monday asked the Election Commission, the central government, the Chief Election Commissioner and the two other Election Commissioners to respond within a week to petitions arguing that decisions belonging to the Commission as a body have been taken by its chairman alone. Image Source: @tarunjatav50 on X A bench of the Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant, with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, issued notice on two petitions and tagged them together. It declined to grant any interim relief. The petitions turn on a distinction that is ordinarily academic. Article 324 of the Constitution vests the superintendence and control of elections in the Election Commission, a body that currently has three members. The Chief Election Commissioner chairs it but, the petitioners argue, holds no separate authority of his own. Under the law governing the Commission, business is to be transacted unanimously so far as possible, and where the members differ, by majority. ...

A third day of marches in Delhi ended with buses, barricades and a student leader driven fifty kilometres out of the city before being let go. What the protesters want is the Chief Election Commissioner's resignation, which the Indian Constitution leaves almost nobody in a position to grant. File Photo: @SpokespersonECI on X Neha Bora was picked up for the third consecutive day on Sunday. She heads the All India Students' Association, a left-wing student body founded in 1990 and affiliated to the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, which has long been among the strongest organisations on campuses such as Jawaharlal Nehru University and Delhi University. She was taken from near Jantar Mantar at about five in the evening and driven to a police station in Narela, roughly fifty kilometres away in the far north of Delhi. She was released that same evening and posted a video afterwards. AISA says she came back without her bag or her phone. The officials have maint...

INDIA alliance to march to the Election Commission on 6 October and hold a Delhi rally on 1 November while the BJP says the campaign is an alibi for expected defeat Image Source: @INCIndia on X India's opposition alliance, led by the Indian National Congress, announced a month-long programme of protests against the Election Commission on Wednesday, after a meeting in New Delhi, and said it wanted future elections conducted with paper ballots rather than electronic voting machines. The INDIA bloc will hold district-level "save democracy" marches and demonstrations outside district magistrates' offices from 2 to 8 October, the Congress president, Mallikarjun Kharge, noted. Opposition members of parliament will march to the Election Commission on 6 October. Leaders will seek a meeting with the president in the second week of October, five large rallies are planned, and a rally in Delhi on 1 November will focus on what the alliance has displayed its problems with the cu...

India's grand old party's highest decision-making body calls for restoration of 13.3 crore names, days after a newspaper investigation reported dissent inside the Election Commission Image Source: INCIndia on X India's main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, has demanded the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner and the immediate suspension of a nationwide revision of electoral rolls, in a resolution passed by its highest decision-making body. The Congress Working Committee, meeting at the party's headquarters in New Delhi on Tuesday, also called for the restoration of 13 crore 30 lakh names, more than 130 million, which it said had been removed from the rolls through the Special Intensive Revision. The resolution follows an investigation published by The Indian Express last week reporting that two of the three members of the Election Commission had formally objected on record at least 14 times over ten months to decisions taken without their kn...

The seven-day deadline set by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for Congress MP and India's Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi to substantiate his allegations of large-scale voter exclusion has lapsed without compliance.  Rahul Gandhi did not submit any signed affidavit or documentary evidence , as was explicitly demanded by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar during a press conference on August 17.  Image Source: INC India The ultimatum, presented in direct response to Gandhi’s public accusation that over 1.5 lakh names had been illegally removed from electoral rolls, was unambiguous: either file a sworn declaration with supporting facts or issue a public apology. As far as the machine-readable voter list is concerned, the Supreme Court has already said in 2019 that this could be a violation of voter privacy. - Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar #BiharSIR2025 | #ElectionCommission | @ECISVEEP | @SpokespersonECI | #GyaneshKumar pic.twitte...

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced two key measures aimed at improving voter convenience and ensuring compliance with poll day protocols. The latest directives include the introduction of a mobile phone deposit facility outside polling stations and revised rules for canvassing near voting areas, in accordance with the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 . Image Source: ECI Website/representational Only Acknowledging the growing use of mobile phones across urban and rural areas—and the difficulty some voters face in managing them on election day—the Commission has directed that voters will be required to deposit their mobile phones outside the polling station. Designated pigeonhole boxes or jute bags will be placed near the entrance for this purpose. Phones must be switched off and are not permitted inside polling booths . However, exemptions can be made by the R...