India’s election system sets global benchmark, Telangana CEO tells EU officials in Brussels
Sudharshan Reddy highlights transparency and legal robustness of worlds largest democratic exercise during high level meeting in Belgium
A delegation led by Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Sudharshan Reddy met Annabelle Hageman, Director General of FPS Interior, and senior European Parliament officials in Brussels on Tuesday. During the meeting, India’s election management system was presented as a global benchmark for transparency and legal robustness. Addressing the high-level interaction, Sudharshan Reddy stated that India has built the world’s most transparent election management system, capable of handling nearly a billion voters across some of the most complex terrains on earth. He noted that the Election Commission of India conducted the 2024–25 election cycle for approximately 979 million electors, deploying more than 20 million personnel. This made it the largest election operation ever mounted globally. India’s democracy functions across 23 languages, multiple religions, and extreme geographies, ranging from Himalayan hamlets to island villages, with polling booths serving anywhere between one and 1,500 voters.
Sudharshan Reddy highlighted the security architecture of India’s Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) equipped with VVPAT, describing them as standalone, non-networked, and tamper-proof. During the 2024 elections, India counted 705 million votes in a single day using 6.2 million EVM units. Voters viewed over 817 million VVPAT slips, and a physical verification of 16 million slips during the counting process found no mismatches. He further noted that all 41 legal challenges to EVMs over the past 35 years have been dismissed by the Supreme Court.
The Chief Electoral Officer affirmed that elections are conducted strictly under constitutional and statutory frameworks, supported by thousands of general, police, and expenditure observers, alongside a growing digital ecosystem of voter and candidate applications. He concluded by stating that India has earned public trust through absolute transparency, with the Election Commission now setting the global gold standard for elections held according to the rule of law.
