India's Election Commission (ECI), one of the most trusted public institutions in the world's largest democracy, is facing a test of its credibility.
Over the past few weeks, it has fielded a string of allegations from the opposition, ranging from voter fraud and manipulation to inconsistencies in electoral rolls. It has denied all of these.
Opposition leaders, who have held massive protests against the ECI in recent days, said they were considering an impeachment motion to remove the chief election commissioner from his position. They hadn't filed the motion by Thursday, the last day of the monsoon session of parliament, and currently don't have the numbers to see it through.
Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi, the leader of India's main opposition party Congress, has launched a 16-day, 1,300km (807 miles) march - known as the Voter Adhikar Yatra (Voter Rights March) - in Bihar state to protest against the ECI, marking a dramatic escalation in the political fight. Bihar, set to vote in a key state election later this year, has been in the middle of a heated controversy over a recent revision of electoral rolls.
Gandhi first made the allegations of vote theft in August, accusing the ECI of colluding with the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to rig the 2024 general elections.
