The institution that referees Indian democracy is once again at the centre of a political firefight — and Union Health Minister and BJP National President J. P. Nadda has fired the opening salvo. On Tuesday, 27 October 2026, Nadda posted sharply on X, accusing the Congress party of hypocrisy for questioning the Election Commission's functioning after decades of allegedly packing it with sympathetic appointees.

Nadda's post, in Hindi, cuts straight to the accusation: 'Jo Congress party kabhi chunav aayog mein apne paksh ke logon ko niyukt kar use prabhavit karne ka prayas karti thi, wahi aaj uski karyapranali par sawal utha rahi hai.' ('The same Congress party that once tried to influence the Election Commission by appointing people loyal to it is today raising questions about its functioning.')

Seshan, Gill, Chawla — Three Names, One Charge

Nadda names three former Chief Election Commissioners as evidence: T. N. Seshan, M. S. Gill, and Naveen Chawla. The invocation is deliberate. Seshan served from 1990 to 1996 and ironically became the CEC most celebrated for asserting the Commission's independence — eventually clashing bitterly with the Congress government that appointed him. M. S. Gill served from 1996 to 2001, overseeing the rollout of electronic voting machines. Naveen Chawla's 2009–2010 tenure attracted the loudest political controversy, with opposition parties alleging partisan leanings at the time of his appointment — a charge Congress denied.

Nadda's argument is that these names represent a pattern: a party that shaped the Commission's composition for decades now casting doubt on the very institution it moulded. It is a charge that Congress has consistently rejected, pointing instead to the BJP government's own changes to the appointment law.

The 2023 Law That Replaced the Chief Justice

The legislative backdrop here is critical. In March 2023, the Supreme Court directed that the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners be appointed by a three-member panel comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and the Chief Justice of India — pending formal legislation. By December 2023, Parliament enacted the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, which retained the Prime Minister and Leader of Opposition on the panel but replaced the Chief Justice with a Union Cabinet Minister.

Nadda frames the inclusion of the Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's contribution to transparency: giving the Opposition a formal seat at the table for the first time in statute. Congress and its allies have countered that removing the Chief Justice from the panel weakens the judiciary's check on executive influence — the very critique that animated the Supreme Court's original order.

A Long-Running Institutional Battle

The dispute over Election Commission appointments is as old as the republic itself, and neither side in Indian politics has clean hands. Successive governments — Congress and BJP alike — have been accused of timing appointments to suit electoral calendars. What has changed is the legislative framework: for the first time, the selection process is codified in statute rather than left to executive discretion alone.

Nadda's hashtag #SaveDemocracyRemoveAnarchy signals this is not an isolated jab but part of a coordinated BJP messaging campaign positioning the party as the defender of institutional order against what it characterises as Congress-led destabilisation.

The real test of the 2023 Act will come the next time a vacancy opens in the Election Commission — when the world will see whether the statutory panel, with the Opposition formally at the table, delivers a more consensus-driven appointment or merely a new arena for the same old fight.