Challenges Before Election Commission of India

The Election Commission of India is an autonomous, quasi-judiciary constitutional body of India. Its mission is to conduct free and fair elections in India. It was established on 25 January, 1950 under Article 324 of the Constitution of India. The Election Commission has taken several new initiatives in the recent past as a use of state owned Electronic Media for broadcast or telecast by political parties, checking: criminalization of polities, providing with electoral identify cars, streamlining the procedure for registration of political parties and requiring them to hold regular organizational elections, a variety of measures of strict compliance of Model Code of Conduct for providing a level playing field to contestants during the elections. The Election Commission has conducted a number of laudable electoral reforms to strengthen democracy and enhance the fairness of elections. In this paper, the challenges before the Election Commission are described with some measures taken by the election commission of India to control malpractices. Some of the challenges the election commission is facing are: Dominance of money power and Muscle power, Criminalization of politics, Financing of election exceeding the legal limit, Booth capturing, Intimidation of voters, Buying Voters, Tampered electoral rolls, Large-scale rigging of elections, Abuse of religion and caste in the enlistment of voters.