Ex-Bureaucrats Back Election Commission, Reject Vote Rigging Charges

A group of 124 former IAS, IFS, and allied services officers have issued an open letter to the citizens of India strongly defending the Election Commission of India and the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Responding to allegations of vote rigging, the former officers described the claims as baseless and lacking credible evidence. They emphasised India's transition away from electoral violence and ballot stuffing to a robust structure with multiple safeguards, including electronic voting machine sealing and voter-verified paper audit trail verification. Highlighting the 2025 Bihar assembly elections, they noted the cleanup of 22 lakh deceased voters and seven lakh duplicate entries alongside the addition of 21.5 lakh new voters. The former bureaucrats maintained that the electoral system remains independent, pointing out that ruling parties have lost elections under the same framework, and underlined that the Supreme Court upheld the authority of the Election Commission to conduct electoral roll revisions.