• The Election Commission of India (ECI) is a permanent institution established under the Constitution. It has been entrusted with the authority to supervise, direct, and oversee the entire electoral process for Parliament, State legislatures, and the offices of the President and Vice-President.
• Initially, the Commission comprised only the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), but it was later expanded to include two additional Election Commissioners. In 2023, Parliament enacted the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, which introduced a new appointment process.
• Under this law, EC members are chosen by a three-member selection panel consisting of the Prime Minister, a Union Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition. Opposition parties criticized this arrangement, arguing that the government could dominate the decision-making by a 2:1 majority.

Why is the ECI under scrutiny?

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  In recent years, several political parties have accused the Commission of irregularities in voter lists. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition claimed that Maharashtra’s rolls were artificially inflated with lakhs of new entries between the 2019 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
• Similar allegations came from the Congress in Haryana and later from the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi. Amidst these accusations, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar announced a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar aimed at cleaning up voter rolls, which the Commission said would later be extended nationwide.
• Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged large-scale manipulation in the voter rolls of the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in Karnataka, which he said benefitted the BJP.
• According to him, a six-month investigation by his party revealed duplicate entries, false addresses, and mass registrations from single locations. He demanded that the EC provide all political parties with machine-readable electoral rolls for independent verification.
• However, the Commission declined, citing cyber-security risks—a stance earlier upheld by the Supreme Court in a 2018 petition filed by former Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath.

When was the Bihar revision announced?

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  On June 24, the ECI ordered a Special Intensive Revision of Bihar’s electoral rolls, just five months before the State Assembly polls. Under this exercise, voters not listed in the 2003 rolls were required to furnish proof of their date and place of birth to confirm citizenship. Those born after 1987 had to additionally provide documents establishing their parents’ birth details.
• When the draft rolls were published on August 1, Bihar’s registered electorate had shrunk by 65 lakh—from 7.89 crore to 7.24 crore. The Commission explained that the deletions were due to deaths, migration, duplicate entries, or voters being untraceable.
• This led to petitions from civil society groups, NGOs, and Opposition parties in the Supreme Court, questioning the fairness of the process