A young woman from Dadra and Nagar Haveli called last week about the recent municipal council elections. This is a district in which I once served as Collector and Returning Officer. Her father’s nomination for municipal councillor had been rejected with no hearing or chance at verification. She asked, “Sir, is this how elections work?” The honest answer is yes. And that is the problem. Her case was not isolated. In those same elections, candidates of the Congress were systematically rejected on technical grounds, effectively ensuring unopposed victories in several wards. However, the fact of that matter is that such rejections are lawful.

And that is the deeper tragedy, democracy being killed by rule by law. The most undemocratic part of India’s electoral process occurs before a single

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