The Election Commission is usually revised as a bundle of articles and a few case names, and in the exam hall the bundle falls apart. There is a better way in. Of every power the Commission has, ask one question: where does this power come from? There are only three possible answers — the Constitution, a statute, or nothing at all — and knowing which is which settles most questions before you have finished reading them.
This is the fifth capsule in our polity depth series, going a level below the Constitution capsule, for SSC CGL and CHSL, RRB NTPC, State PSC, banking general awareness and UPSC Prelims.
The Hinge: Three Tiers of Power
Everything the Commission does sits on one of three foundations, and they are not equally strong.
| Where the power comes from | What it covers | How strong |
|---|---|---|
| The Constitution — Article 324 | Superintendence, direction and control of electoral rolls and the conduct of elections to Parliament, the State Legislatures, and the offices of President and Vice-President | Very wide, and deliberately vague. The Commission fills the gaps itself where no law says otherwise. |
| A statute — RPA 1950, RPA 1951, the Symbols Order 1968 | Who may vote, who may stand, what disqualifies a candidate, which party gets which symbol | Precise, but limited to what Parliament actually wrote. |
| Nothing at all — the Model Code of Conduct | How parties and governments must behave once the election is announced | No legal force whatsoever — and still the Commission’s sharpest instrument. |
Now watch this decoder answer questions you have not seen.
- Is the Model Code of Conduct statutory? No. It is an agreement among political parties that the Commission enforces by publicity and moral pressure, not by prosecution.
- Can the Commission cancel a party’s registration? Almost never — because no statute gives it that power. It can derecognise, which is a different thing entirely.
- Who decides whether an election was valid? Not the Commission. The Constitution itself sends that question to the High Court.
- Does the Commission run panchayat and municipal elections? No. A separate State Election Commission does, under different articles.
Articles 324 to 329 — The Whole Chapter
Part XV of the Constitution is short. Six articles, and each does one job.
| Article | What it does |
|---|---|
| 324 | Vests the superintendence, direction and control of elections in the Election Commission. Also fixes its composition and the rules for removal. |
| 325 | One general electoral roll for every constituency. No person may be excluded on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex. |
| 326 | Elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies are on the basis of adult suffrage — every citizen aged 18 or above. The age was brought down from 21 by the 61st Amendment Act, 1988. |
| 327 | Parliament may make laws on elections to either House of Parliament or of a State Legislature. |
| 328 | A State Legislature may make laws on elections to its own House, on matters Parliament has not covered. |
| 329 | Bar on courts. Delimitation laws cannot be questioned in any court, and an election can be challenged only by an election petition presented to the High Court. |
Article 329(b) is worth a second look. You cannot go to court in the middle of an election to stop it. You must wait for the result and then file an election petition in the High Court. The reason is practical: an election involving hundreds of millions of voters cannot be halted by a single writ petition, so the Constitution closes that door on purpose.
The Commission Itself
The Commission came into existence on 25 January 1950, one day before the Constitution came into force. That date is now observed as National Voters’ Day.
Article 324(2) says the Commission consists of the Chief Election Commissioner and such number of other Election Commissioners as the President may from time to time fix. That phrase is why the size of the Commission has changed more than once.
| Period | Size |
|---|---|
| 1950 to 16 October 1989 | Single-member — the CEC alone |
| 16 October 1989 to 1 January 1990 | Three members, for the first time |
| 1 January 1990 to 30 September 1993 | Back to a single member |
| 1 October 1993 onwards | Three members — and it has stayed that way |
Is the CEC the boss of the other two? No. In T. N. Seshan v. Union of India (1995) the Supreme Court held that the CEC is not superior to the other Election Commissioners; the Commission takes decisions by majority, with the three members equal in voting power. The CEC is the chairman, not the commander.
The Second Hinge: Three Commissioners, One Protection
Here is the asymmetry that makes the rest of the chapter make sense, and it has exactly the shape of the one in our President and Governor capsule.
| Chief Election Commissioner | Other Election Commissioners | |
|---|---|---|
| How removed | Only in the same manner and on the same grounds as a judge of the Supreme Court — a motion in both Houses, passed by a special majority, then an order of the President | By the President, on the recommendation of the CEC |
| In plain words | Needs Parliament | Needs one person’s signature |
| Service conditions | Cannot be varied to their disadvantage after appointment | The same protection applies |
So the constitutional shield is given to one of the three, not to all three. That is the single most examinable fact in this whole capsule, and it is also the reason the appointment process has been litigated for years: if the executive can pick all three and can move two of them through the third, independence rests on a narrow base.
How They Are Appointed — And Why This Changed Recently
For seventy-three years the Constitution said only that the President appoints them, subject to any law Parliament makes — and Parliament had never made one. Then two things happened in quick succession.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2 March 2023 | In Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India, a five-judge Constitution Bench held that until Parliament legislated, appointments would be made by the President on the advice of a committee of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and the Chief Justice of India. |
| December 2023 | Parliament passed the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, which replaced the Chief Justice on that committee with a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. |
That swap is the heart of every argument about the Act. The Court’s committee had two members from the political executive and one from outside it. The Act’s committee has two government members and one opposition member, so the government side always carries the vote.
What the 2023 Act provides:
- Search Committee — headed by the Cabinet Secretary, with two members of Secretary rank who have expertise in election matters. It prepares a panel of five names.
- Selection Committee — the Prime Minister as chairperson, a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. It may look beyond the panel of five.
- Term — six years or until the age of 65, whichever is earlier. An Election Commissioner who is promoted to CEC gets a combined total that still cannot exceed six years.
- No reappointment.
- Removal — unchanged, because removal is in the Constitution, not in this Act.
A trap worth naming. The Bill as introduced set their salary equal to that of the Cabinet Secretary. An amendment moved during passage restored parity with a judge of the Supreme Court, and that is what the Act finally says. A great deal of revision material was written from the Bill and still carries the wrong answer. Whenever a provision was controversial while a Bill was in Parliament, check what the Act says, not what the Bill said.
And the Act is itself under challenge. Petitions questioning the removal of the Chief Justice from the selection committee are pending in the Supreme Court. The Court declined to stay the Act in March 2024, so it remains fully in force. As matters stand, no final judgment has been delivered, and it is safer in an answer to call the question open than to call it settled.
The current Chief Election Commissioner is Gyanesh Kumar, the 26th holder of the office, who assumed charge in February 2025 — the first appointed under the new Act.
The Two Representation of the People Acts
Two Acts, one year apart, and candidates mix them up constantly. The split is clean: 1950 is about the voter, 1951 is about the candidate.
| RPA, 1950 | RPA, 1951 |
|---|---|
| Who may vote | Who may stand |
| Allocation of seats in the Lok Sabha and the Assemblies | The actual conduct of elections |
| Delimitation of constituencies | Qualifications and disqualifications of members |
| Qualifications of voters | Corrupt practices and electoral offences |
| Preparation and revision of electoral rolls | Election disputes and election petitions |
Memory hook: 1950 comes first, and so does the voter. You must be on the roll before anyone can be elected.
Two provisions of the 1951 Act come up repeatedly:
- Section 8 — disqualification on conviction. In Lily Thomas v. Union of India (2013) the Supreme Court struck down the sub-section that let a convicted sitting legislator stay in office while an appeal was pending. Disqualification is now immediate on conviction.
- Section 126 — the silence period. Public campaigning must stop 48 hours before the close of polling.
The Model Code of Conduct — Powerful, and Not Law
The Model Code of Conduct is a set of rules on what parties, candidates and the government in office may do once an election is announced. It has no statutory backing at all. It grew out of an understanding between political parties in Kerala in the 1960s and the Commission has enforced it ever since.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| When does it come into force? | The moment the Commission announces the election schedule — not on the date of notification, and not on polling day |
| When does it end? | When the election process is complete |
| Is it law? | No. Breaching it is not by itself a criminal offence |
| So what happens to a violator? | Censure, a ban on campaigning for a fixed period, an advisory, or a reference to the police if the same act also breaks an actual law |
| Why does it work anyway? | Because publicity is the punishment, and because every party knows it will be in opposition one day |
The most consequential thing the Code does is freeze the government. Once it is in force, the government in office cannot announce new schemes, sanction new projects or make discretionary transfers in the poll-bound area. An institution with no law behind it temporarily suspends the announcing power of an elected government. That is worth one line in any descriptive answer.
Political Parties: Registration, Recognition, and the Difference
Three words that look similar and mean very different things.
| Term | What it means | Who can do it |
|---|---|---|
| Registration | A party is entered on the Commission’s register under Section 29A of the RPA, 1951. It gets legal existence and tax benefits | The Commission registers |
| Recognition | A registered party that crosses fixed vote-share and seat thresholds becomes a National or State party and gets a reserved symbol, free broadcast time and more star campaigners | The Commission recognises, under the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 |
| Derecognition | Recognition is withdrawn. The party still exists as a registered unrecognised party and can still contest | The Commission can do this |
| Deregistration | Registration itself is cancelled — the party ceases to exist in law | The Commission generally cannot. No statute gives it the power |
The Commission may cancel a registration in only three narrow situations: where the registration was obtained by fraud; where the party is declared unlawful by the Government; and where the party itself amends its constitution to say it will no longer abide by the Constitution of India.
Go back to the hinge and you could have predicted this. Registration is a statutory power, so the Commission can only do what the statute allows — and the statute never gave it a power to undo a registration. The Commission has asked Parliament for that power more than once.
The Machinery: EVM, VVPAT and NOTA
| Thing | What it is | Key dates |
|---|---|---|
| EVM — Electronic Voting Machine | A control unit with a ballot unit; no network connection, so it cannot be reached remotely | First used in 1982, at Paravur in Kerala. Used in every constituency from the 2004 general election |
| VVPAT — Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail | A printer attached to the machine that shows the voter a slip for seven seconds before it drops into a sealed box | Introduced in 2013; rolled out fully by the 2019 general election |
| NOTA — None Of The Above | A last button on the machine allowing a voter to reject every candidate | Directed by the Supreme Court in PUCL v. Union of India, 2013 |
Two things about NOTA that examiners like. First, it is a right to secrecy, not a right to reject — before NOTA a voter who wanted to reject everyone had to sign a register and give up the secrecy of the ballot. Second, NOTA votes do not change the result: the candidate with the most valid votes wins even if NOTA polls more than any of them.
On VVPAT counting, the Supreme Court in April 2024 rejected a demand for 100% verification of VVPAT slips against the machine count, leaving the existing system of random sample verification in place.
Who Draws the Boundaries — And the Bill That Failed
Delimitation means redrawing the boundaries and the number of constituencies after a census, so that seats roughly follow population. The Election Commission does not do this. A separate Delimitation Commission does — set up by a fresh Act of Parliament each time, in 1952, 1962, 1972 and 2002, headed by a retired or serving Supreme Court judge, with the Chief Election Commissioner and the relevant State Election Commissioner as ex-officio members. Its orders have the force of law and cannot be questioned in any court — that is Article 329(a) at work.
But seats have been frozen for fifty years.
| Amendment | What it did |
|---|---|
| 42nd Amendment Act, 1976 | Froze seat allocation on the 1971 census figures until after the 2000 census |
| 84th Amendment Act, 2001 | Extended that freeze to the first census taken after the year 2026 |
| 87th Amendment Act, 2003 | Allowed constituency boundaries to be redrawn on 2001 census figures, without changing the totals |
Why the freeze? States that controlled their population growth would have lost seats to states that did not — a direct penalty for doing what national policy asked. Parliament postponed the problem rather than solve it.
And the postponement is now ending, because Census 2027 is the first census taken after 2026 — the point we made in our Census 2027 explainer.
Which brings us to something that happened in April 2026 and is likely to be asked about for years.
- The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 11 April 2026. It would have raised the maximum number of Lok Sabha members elected from the States from 530 to 815, redefined which census is used, and operationalised the one-third reservation of seats for women after delimitation.
- On 17 April 2026 the Bill was put to the vote and failed. 298 members voted for it and 230 against, out of 528 present and voting.
- Two accompanying Bills — the Delimitation Bill, 2026 and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 — were then withdrawn.
Now do the arithmetic, because this is the reason to remember the episode at all. A constitutional amendment under Article 368 needs both a majority of the total membership of the House and a majority of not less than two-thirds of those present and voting. The Lok Sabha has 543 members, so the first test needed 272 votes. The Bill had 298 — it passed the first test comfortably. But two-thirds of the 528 who were present and voting is 352. 298 is well short of 352, so the Bill fell.
That is the special majority of Article 368 doing visible work, and it is the best real example any of us are likely to get. If the two-part test is not yet solid, our capsule on constitutional amendments sets it out in full.
What Has Actually Changed Recently
Two developments that most revision notes have not caught up with.
- Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. The Commission began a house-to-house re-verification of the rolls in Bihar in mid-2025, extended it to nine more states and three union territories from 27 October 2025, and announced a further phase in May 2026. It rests on Article 324 together with Section 21(3) of the RPA, 1950. It was challenged, and on 27 May 2026 the Supreme Court upheld it, holding that the exercise falls within the Commission’s statutory mandate. Earlier, in August 2025, the Court had already directed that Aadhaar and the voter ID card be accepted as proof and that deleted names be published with reasons.
- The challenge to the 2023 appointments Act is still pending, with no stay. Write it as unresolved.
Traps Worth Marking
- The Election Commission of India is not the State Election Commission. Panchayat and municipal elections are run by a State Election Commission under Articles 243K and 243ZA, appointed by the Governor. Completely separate body, separate appointment, separate removal.
- The Commission conducts elections to the offices of President and Vice-President, but not to local bodies.
- Only the CEC has the judge-like removal protection. The other two do not.
- The Model Code is not law, and it starts from the announcement of the schedule.
- Election expenditure ceilings apply to candidates, not to political parties.
- An election is challenged by an election petition in the High Court, not by a writ during the election.
- Use the year in an Amendment Act’s own name. It is the 84th Amendment Act, 2001, even though it took effect in 2002.
Five Practice Questions
Q1. Which article vests the superintendence, direction and control of elections in the Election Commission?
(a) Article 320 (b) Article 324 (c) Article 326 (d) Article 329
Answer: (b) Article 324 324 is the core article. 326 is adult suffrage, 329 is the bar on courts, and 320 concerns the Public Service Commissions.
Q2. An Election Commissioner other than the Chief Election Commissioner can be removed…
(a) only by impeachment in both Houses (b) by the President on the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner (c) by the Chief Justice of India (d) by the Prime Minister alone
Answer: (b) by the President on the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner Only the CEC has the judge-like protection. This asymmetry is written into Article 324(5).
Q3. The Model Code of Conduct comes into force…
(a) when the Commission announces the election schedule (b) on the date the notification is issued (c) 48 hours before polling (d) when the President dissolves the House
Answer: (a) when the Commission announces the election schedule It starts at announcement and runs until the process is complete. It is not a statute and carries no criminal penalty of its own.
Q4. Which of these is NOT a ground on which the Election Commission may cancel a party’s registration?
(a) The registration was obtained by fraud (b) The Government has declared the party unlawful (c) The party amends its constitution to reject the Constitution of India (d) The party fails to win any seat in two consecutive general elections
Answer: (d) The party fails to win any seat in two consecutive general elections Poor performance can cost a party its recognition and reserved symbol, but not its registration. Only the first three grounds allow cancellation.
Q5. The freeze on the allocation of Lok Sabha seats among the States runs until…
(a) the year 2026 (b) the first census taken after the year 2026 (c) the 2031 census (d) a law made by Parliament under Article 327
Answer: (b) the first census taken after the year 2026 The 84th Amendment Act, 2001 used exactly that phrase. Census 2027 is therefore the census that ends the freeze — not the calendar year 2026 itself.
Ten more questions on this and today’s Current Affairs explainer are waiting on our Test Your Knowledge page, with a free PDF.
Sources: the Constitution of India, Part XV; the Representation of the People Acts of 1950 and 1951; the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 and the PRS India summary of the Bill; Supreme Court Observer and reported accounts of Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023), the pending challenge to the 2023 Act, and the judgment of 27 May 2026 on the Special Intensive Revision; and LiveLaw and other reports of the Lok Sabha division on the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026. The challenge to the 2023 Act is still pending and is described above as unresolved.
