Elections in India are run by the Election Commission of India, a constitutional body created by Article 324. Understanding what it is, and what it is not, explains a lot about how Indian elections work.
A constitutional body, not a department
The Commission is not part of any ministry and does not report to the government of the day. Article 324 vests in it the superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of rolls and the conduct of elections to Parliament, to state legislatures, and to the offices of President and Vice-President.
That phrase is deliberately broad. Where the law is silent on some aspect of running an election, the Commission has the authority to fill the gap, and the courts have upheld that reading.
Who is in it
A Chief Election Commissioner and, at present, two Election Commissioners. Decisions are taken by majority where they differ.
The Commission was a single-member body for most of its early history and became multi-member in 1993.
What it actually controls
- Electoral rolls: preparation, revision and final publication.
- The schedule: it decides when elections are held within the constitutional limits, and the announcement triggers the Model Code of Conduct.
- Conduct of the poll: polling stations, staff, machines, security deployment.
- Counting and declaration of results.
- Party registration and recognition, and the allotment of symbols. See how parties are registered.
- Expenditure monitoring against the candidate spending ceiling.
What it does not control
It does not decide who may stand beyond applying the statutory disqualifications, it does not adjudicate a declared result, and it does not run local body elections.
A declared result can be challenged only by an election petition in the High Court. Municipal and panchayat elections are run by State Election Commissions, which are separate bodies.
On the ground
The Commission is small at the centre and works through state machinery. A Chief Electoral Officer heads each state, a District Election Officer each district, and a Returning Officer runs each constituency, declaring its result. At the booth, the presiding officer is in charge.
Millions of government employees are temporarily placed under the Commission’s control during an election, which is how a body of a few hundred people conducts the largest elections in the world.
Appointment and removal
Commissioners are appointed by the President. The process for selecting them was placed on a statutory footing by legislation in 2023, after the Supreme Court held that the earlier practice of appointment by the executive alone needed a defined mechanism. The law has itself been challenged, and the position is contested.
Removal is where the asymmetry lies. The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only in the same manner as a Supreme Court judge, which requires a parliamentary process. The other Election Commissioners can be removed on the CEC’s recommendation. That difference in protection is a long-standing criticism of the design, because it makes two of the three members formally less secure than the one who heads them.
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