MyVoice: Views of our readers 25th September 2026

What’s going on in India?

The price of every commodity is going up silently, while an upward revision of wages is nowhere in sight, resulting in a steep decline in real wages. Nearly every family has an unemployed member, giving sleepless nights to all. Education no longer secures employment; on the one hand, lakhs of schools are closing, enrolment is declining and dropouts are rising alarmingly, signalling that children are choosing earning over learning. The small-loan borrower faces the harassment of recovery agents, while the big-loan defaulter is honoured with write-offs and haircuts. Those who were drawn in by the promise of free digital transactions are now bewildered at being taxed. The pressure appears to be mounting from the two American operators that control 83 per cent of digital transactions in India. It is well known that it is not so much the educated and the rich as the less privileged who exercise their democratic right by experimenting with various political parties and groups.

The ECI’s arbitrary actions know no bounds, as the media has revealed. An active contestant in the ensuing election in West Bengal has been arrested on the ECI’s directions, based on a complaint filed in 2007. The leader of that agitation movement is now Chief Minister, while the one who acted under his command has now been arrested. Another candidate quit after speaking to the CM; yet another withdrew as his cadre came under threat resulting in cry for restoration of democracy. The same ECI issued voter identity cards with which voters elected the parties of their choice. Now the same ECI is removing crores of voters from the rolls under a system that even a cabinet minister and a former Union Home Minister claim not to understand.

What of the governments formed by those elected through false voters? The ECI stands exposed for the absence of democratic functioning within the Commission itself. People are left clueless as to how a Commission of such undemocratic character will save democracy. Besides these man-made woes, people must also face the predatory onset of Super El Nino. Though its tentacles are already spreading fast, predicting unprecedented human loss and unbearable suffering, the government has taken no precautionary measures, apparently ready to pass the blame to nature. Politicians are busy escaping the ED’s reach and chasing purse and post.

A G Rajmohan, Anantapur

Intriguing behaviour by EC members

According to an expose by a newspaper, if two of the three members of the Election Commission had recorded objections, at least as many as 14 times in a span of 10 months, and yet the major decisions were taken without their knowledge, what prevented them, at the outset, from resigning their posts in protest against such authoritarian trends immediately and coming out in public then and there.

Again, thinking for a moment , had the expose not seen the light of the day, the working record of the E.C continues to be taken as above board, much to the chagrin of the democratic conscience.

Seshagiri Row Karry, Hyderabad

ECI under glare for right reasons

The media expose of ECI assumes significance for its political fallout and its bearing on how we move forward as a democracy. The damning revelations in the report will cost the BJP politically and dent its image as it is generally perceived that the ECI is remote-controlled by the government. The political interference by the BIP in the functioning of the ECI is too self-evident and glaringly obvious to refute it convincingly.

The BJP has defended the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar overlooking his “illegal conduct” and described the “dissent” and “rift” within the ECI as “signs of its democratic functioning”, making it hard for us to make sense of it. The CJP has called Gyanesh Kumar the “biggest threat to Indian democracy”.

As a party that has colluded with the ECI to undermine democracy, it will be now hard for the BJP to survive the vote chori charge and find favour with the electorate as in the past. In a true democracy the voters choose the government, whereas here in India the ECI has aided the government in choosing the voters.

G David Milton, Maruthancode

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Hans India