A group of 124 former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers has issued an open letter defending the Election Commission of India (ECI) and its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls , arguing that allegations of electoral fraud must be supported by credible evidence.
“Every candidate’s agent watches every booth and takes home a signed count of the votes cast. The dispute has prompted protests in the national capital, with several Opposition leaders, including four former chief ministers, detained by police on Saturday as they attempted to join demonstrations against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and former Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar were among the leaders detained while attempting to join protests in Delhi on Saturday.
“We belong to no party. “We know what a rigged election looks like. We served in those days you know only from films: the katta at the booth, the bahubali’s men, ballot boxes stuffed or stolen, voters turned away. When violence speaks, democracy falls silent,” it continued. Machines are sealed with the agents’ signatures and guarded in strong rooms that candidates may watch. Rigging would need the silence of tens of thousands of officials from governments of every political colour, and of the losing parties’ own agents. No such conspiracy has ever been proved. The same logic governs the top. The group’s letter comes as the Opposition intensifies its campaign against the Election Commission.
Because one word, ‘rigged’, is now thrown at our elections without evidence, and every repetition wounds democratic trust that belongs to all of us,” the letter read, we write. Because officials became saints, this did not happen. Because the system that ECI created trusts no one blindly,” the letter read, it happened.
Booth capturing was so common that Parliament made it a crime in 1989. The group cited the 2025 Bihar Assembly election as evidence of improvements in electoral administration, saying the state recorded no re-polling for the first time in its history and achieved its highest voter turnout since 1951, with women also participating in record numbers. “Today, Bihar, once synonymous with booth capturing, held its 2025 election without a single re-poll, a first in its history. Turnout was the highest since 1951, and women voted in record numbers. Paper slips are matched with machine counts, a safeguard the Supreme Court upheld in 2024.
The letter, addressed to the citizens of India, comes amid protests by Opposition leaders who allege irregularities in electoral rolls and claims of “vote chori”, or theft of votes.
