Institutional Dynamics In Electoral Democracy: Examining The Roles Of The Delimitation Commission And The Election Commission Of India In Ensuring Free And Fair Elections
- IJLLR Journal
- Nov 21
- 1 min read
Manisha Yadav, PhD Scholar, University of Lucknow
ABSTRACT
With India nearing the 2026 census and resultant delimitation, the air is filled with debates of pros and cons of such vast exercise after almost more than two decades. The concerns are, primarily, two-fold. One, of transparency and gerrymandering and the other of federal equity. While these concerns are real and apparent, there is no denial to the fact that census and delimitation are both, a long due tasks to be undertaken to strengthen the democratic structure of India.
The idea of this paper is to explore the role and interaction of the two most important institutions, Delimitation and Election Commission, when it comes to undertaking the task of delimiting constituencies and conducting free and fair elections in the largest democracy of the world. While exploring the institutional dynamics the paper will seeks to address the key concerns regarding the exercises carried out by these two institutions, like transparency and gerrymandering, and how these two institutions can make the process more trustworthy for voters and people of India. The paper will use legal and constitutional analysis of laws, judgments, and official reports to study the roles of the Delimitation and Election Commissions for this purpose.
Alongside, another important aspect of upholding democracy i.e. the balancing of federal equity, will be discussed in the paper while proposing solutions to find the equilibrium to satisfy both the functional and philosophical aspect of constitutional principles.
