EC's Credibility Under Scrutiny as Survey Shows Plummeting Trust Amid Political Firestorm
Visakhapatnam: Public trust in the Election Commission (EC) has seen a significant decline in key states, according to new survey data, a trend brought into sharp focus today as the poll body and the opposition have engaged in a high-stakes war of words over the integrity of the electoral process.
A post-poll survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies' Lokniti programme reveals a stark drop in the percentage of voters expressing "high trust" in the EC between 2019 and 2025.
The sharpest fall was recorded in Madhya Pradesh, where high trust plummeted from 57% to 17%. In Delhi, it fell from 60% to 21%, and in Uttar Pradesh, from 56% to 21%. Concurrently, the proportion of voters with "no trust" in the poll body nearly quadrupled in Madhya Pradesh (6% to 22%) and almost tripled in Delhi (11% to 30%).
This statistical backdrop of eroding public confidence formed the context for today’s heated political events.
In Sasaram, Bihar, the opposition INDIA bloc launched a 16-day ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ (Voter Rights March), with Lok Sabha leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi accusing the EC of facilitating "vote theft”. He told a rally, "In the entire country, vote theft is going on. In the name of SIR [the special intensive revision of Bihar's voter rolls], they want to add new voters and steal the votes."
A couple of hours later, the EC hit back. In a press conference in Delhi, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar accused political parties of a "deliberate attempt … to create confusion among voters".
Defending the poll body's neutrality, he stated: "For the EC, there are no ruling parties or opposition; all are equal." He questioned the motives behind the allegations, asking, "Bihar’s over-seven crore electors are standing up for the EC, so there is no question over the EC’s integrity."
The immediate catalyst for this confrontation is the ongoing SIR in poll-bound Bihar. The issue escalated on August 14 when the Supreme Court directed the EC to publish a detailed list of approximately 65 lakh electors excluded from the state’s draft rolls, stressing that "a high degree of transparency is required to inspire voters’ confidence".
The opposition has since framed the court's intervention as a vindication of its long-standing concerns, which were amplified on August 7 when Gandhi alleged widespread fraud in the 2024 Lok Sabha election to the Bangalore Central seat.
In a survey conducted ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election in 19 states, Lokniti had found that some 14% of respondents had ‘not much’ trust in the EC, while 9% had none at all. The corresponding proportions of respondents who expressed such views before the 2019 election were 7% and 5%.
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