ECI gains if BJP loses Bihar

The Election Commission of India should hope the Bharatiya Janata Party doesnrsquot propel the National Democratic Alliance to power as it did in the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections Only this outcome can arrest the ongoing freefall of the ECIrsquos credibility tellingly captured in a survey that the Lokniti and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies LoknitiCSDS conducted in five states and Delhi in AugustThe LoknitiCSDS survey showed that the number of people who reposed ldquohigh trustrdquo in the ECI dipped from 57 per cent in 2019 to 17 per cent in 2025 in Madhya Pradesh from 56 per cent to 21 per cent in Uttar Pradesh from 60 per cent to 21 per cent in Delhi from 47 per cent to 35 per cent in Assam and from 57 per cent to 35 per cent in Kerala Only in West Bengal did the number of those having high trust in the ECI fall marginally from 48 per cent to 42 per centThe erosion of the trust in the ECI was the severest where the BJP is in power mdash Assam UP MP and Delhi mdash and marginal in West Bengal which the Opposition rules Kerala was the only exception to this trend an Oppositionruled state yet the trust in the ECI plunged The erosion of trust nevertheless suggests the popular faith in the ECI hasnrsquot completely disappeared holding out a sliver of hope that it can still refurbish its imageWorryingly though the survey showed that those who had ldquono trustrdquo in the ECI grew from 11 per cent in 2019 to 31 per cent in 2025 in Uttar Pradesh from 11 per cent to 30 per cent in Delhi from six per cent to 22 per cent in Madhya Pradesh from six per cent to 17 per cent in Assam and from 10 per cent to 24 per cent in Kerala Only in West Bengal did this metric actually dip from 11 per cent to eight per cent Itrsquos alarming that nearly onethird to onefifth of the electorate in key states has no trust in the ECIAgain the rise in no trust was higher in the BJPruled states than in West Bengal It would seem the BJPrsquos triumphs and abovepar performances are being ascribed to elections not seen as free and fair which the ECI is supposed to guarantee Does West Bengalrsquos trust in the ECI remain intact because the BJPrsquos tally of 24 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 fell to 12 in 2024 Has Keralarsquos distrust in the ECI grown in tandem with the BJPrsquos voteshare rising there from 1564 per cent in 2019 to 1924 per cent in 2024 Tricky questions theseIt isnrsquot without reason that trust in the ECI appears linked to the BJPrsquos electoral performance for the appointment of its commissioners is controlled by the Narendra Modi government Not too surprisingly the LoknitiCSDS survey found that 217 per cent of respondents believed the ECI was ldquocompletelyrdquo and another 314 per cent thought it was ldquosomewhatrdquo under the governmentrsquos pressure The decline in the trust in the ECI suggests people believe it acquiesces to the governmentrsquos pressure to favour the BJPA BJP victory in Bihar would further erode the ECIrsquos credibility not least because its Special Intensive Revision of Biharrsquos electoral rolls was seen as a design to disenfranchise voters from marginalised communities That this didnrsquot happen to the degree it was feared was largely because of the Supreme Courtrsquos interventions But even Biharrsquos final electoral rolls are littered with voters enrolled more than once and cite addresses either invalid or nonexistent The number of the voters falls far short of the adult population and the proportions of women and Muslims on the voter list donrsquot tally with their share in the statersquos populationThe ECI will likely blame Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for the erosion of the popular faith in it Yet it has shied away from conclusively disproving Gandhirsquos charge that in Karnataka citizens were sought to be illegally deleted from the voter list of the Aland Assembly constituency and added to that of the Mahadevapura Assembly constituency more than once Similar allegations regarding the manipulation of Maharashtrarsquos electoral rolls remain inadequately investigatedTherersquos no reason for the ECI and the government to behave in the manner of thieves concealing or wiping out evidence that the people in deference to their constitutional status would treat as genuine errors For instance when the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered the ECI to hand over the CCTV footage of the Haryana Assembly polling day to lawyer Mehmood Pracha the Modi government amended a rule and denied it to him mdash and all others in the future The ECI also issued a directive that the CCTV footage of the entire electoral process should be retained for just 45 days down from six months to a year These decisions have made the ECIrsquos intent suspectA BJP victory in Bihar would create the impression that itrsquos impossible to vanquish the party as long as the ECI is perceived to favour it It would gradually demoralise citizens into disengaging with the electoral process paving the way for a quasioneparty democratic system A BJP loss conversely could stall the freefall of the ECIrsquos credibilityThe writer is a senior journalist and author of Bhima Koregaon Challenging CasteSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper