Elections Under Siege: How Money, Muscle and Hate Are Hollowing Out Indian Democracy

By Prof Ujjwal Anu Chowdhury

Part III of Democracy on Decline in India

The MCC Was Meant to Be India’s Campaign Lakshman Rekha

The Model Code of Conduct is one of India’s most important democratic inventions. It is not merely an election-time etiquette note. It is the moral operating system of electoral democracy. Its purpose is simple: when the election is announced, the ruling party must stop behaving like the owner of the State, and all parties must compete without bribery, intimidation, hate speech, religious mobilisation, official misuse, or inducements.

The Election Commission of India’s MCC clearly says that parties and candidates must not create “mutual hatred” or tension between castes, communities, religious or linguistic groups. It bars appeals to caste or communal feelings, and it says mosques, churches, temples or other places of worship must not be used for election propaganda. It also directs candidates to avoid bribery, intimidation, impersonation, transporting voters illegally, canvassing near polling stations, liquor distribution during the silence period, and misuse of state machinery. The party in power is specifically told not to combine official visits with electioneering, not to use government vehicles or personnel for campaign purposes, and not to announce grants, payments, schemes or promises after elections are announced.

In spirit, the MCC says: win votes, not souls through fear; persuade citizens, do not purchase them; debate policy, do not inflame religious hatred; use party resources, not public money; contest the election, do not capture it.

From People’s Mandate to Managed Mandate

The attached democracy papers rightly argue that the modern crisis of democracy is not always visible through cancelled elections or military coups. Elections continue, parliaments meet, courts function, TV debates happen, and yet democracy can be slowly hollowed out when the conditions around elections become unequal, fearful and manipulated. The deeper question is no longer whether elections are held. India holds elections regularly. The deeper question is whether elections remain free, fair, plural and fearless.

That is where the danger lies. A democracy is not merely a queue outside a polling booth. It is a complete ecosystem: free media, independent institutions, equal citizenship, non-intimidated voters, transparent finance, accountable parties, fair campaign space, and protection of minorities. The attached V-Dem-based notes underline that liberal democracy globally has declined sharply, with the average global citizen’s democratic experience pushed back to 1978 levels, and India is identified as a major driver of democratic decline in South and Central Asia because of its population size.

The Three Poisons: Cash, Criminality and Communalism

Over the last quarter century, Indian elections have been increasingly corrupted by three poisons: money power, muscle power and communal polarisation.

Money power turns the voter into a target of inducement. Muscle power turns the voter into a subject of fear. Communal hatred turns the voter into a member of a threatened tribe rather than a citizen of a republic. Together, they convert democracy from a contest of ideas into a market of fear, cash and identity.

The evidence is no longer anecdotal. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the Election Commission reported record seizures of over ₹4,650 crore even before the first phase of polling, higher than the total seizures during the entire 2019 general election. The ECI’s later election atlas reported total seizures of ₹10,106.20 crore in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, around 290% more than in 2019.

The 2026 Assembly elections showed the same pattern. The ECI said over ₹1,400 crore worth of illicit inducements were seized across Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. West Bengal alone saw seizures of ₹573.41 crore; Assam recorded ₹117.24 crore. The total included cash, liquor, drugs, precious metals and freebies. The ECI also said the total seizure was 40.14% higher than in the corresponding 2021 elections.

This is not a small leak. It is a flood.

Electoral Bonds: When Big Money Went Invisible

At the top end of the system, political finance became darker through electoral bonds. The Supreme Court held the electoral bond scheme unconstitutional because it violated the voter’s right to information. The Association for Democratic Reforms reported that the BJP received ₹6,565.975 crore through electoral bonds from FY 2017–18 to FY 2022–23, amounting to 54.77% of all donations received through the scheme by political parties in that period.

This does not mean that only one party uses money. Most major parties seek large donors. But the scale of advantage matters. When the ruling party receives disproportionate opaque funding, controls state publicity, influences enforcement agencies, and dominates media space, the formal equality of the ballot hides the informal inequality of the campaign. The poor voter may have one vote. But the political machine has unlimited amplification.

Muscle Power: The Criminalisation of Representation

Muscle power is no longer only about booth capturing in the old sense. It now includes intimidation, local strongmen, armed networks, coercive cadre politics, communal street mobilisation, misuse of police, targeted raids, threat of welfare exclusion, and post-poll violence.

ADR’s analysis of all 543 winning candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha election found that 251 winners, or 46%, had declared criminal cases, while 170 winners, or 31%, had declared serious criminal cases. It also found that 504 winners, or 93%, were crorepatis, with average assets of ₹46.34 crore. These are self-declared affidavit-based figures, not convictions; nevertheless, they show how money and criminalisation have become deeply embedded in electoral competitiveness.

The MCC prohibits voter intimidation, bribery and obstruction. Yet the very need for thousands of flying squads, surveillance teams and expenditure observers reveals the scale of the disease. In 2026, the ECI deployed 376 expenditure observers, 7,470 flying squads and 7,470 static surveillance teams to secure “violence-free, intimidation-free and inducement-free” elections.

When democracy needs a security operation to protect the voter from the campaign, something fundamental has gone wrong.

Communal Appeals: The Cheapest Fuel, the Deadliest Fire

The MCC’s clearest red line is communal mobilisation. It says no party should aggravate existing differences or create hatred between religious or caste communities. It bans appeals to caste or communal feelings. But in practice, communal messaging has become one of the most profitable electoral technologies in India.

The method is familiar. First, create fear: “your religion is under threat.” Then create an enemy: “they are infiltrators, appeased, dangerous, disloyal.” Then present the leader as a protector. Then convert every economic grievance into a civilisational battle. Jobs vanish, prices rise, public education weakens, but the voter is told that the real issue is the neighbour’s name, food, prayer or language.

This is where Indian democracy has suffered deeply. The constitutional citizen is slowly replaced by the communal voter. The republic becomes a battlefield of religious arithmetic.

Assam: Welfare in One Hand, Communal Warning in the Other

Assam is one of the sharpest recent examples. Himanta Biswa Sarma, the incumbent Chief Minister and BJP’s central electoral face in Assam, has repeatedly used the language of demographic fear, “Miya” identity and Muslim exclusion. In January 2026, NDTV reported his statement that at least four lakh “Miya” votes would be removed when Special Intensive Revision is held in Assam; the report also quoted him as saying, “We have taken this step so that Miyas cannot vote,” while noting that “Miya” is a term often used derogatorily for Bengali-origin Muslims.

This is not ordinary campaign rhetoric. When the Chief Minister speaks of reducing the voting power of a marked minority community, the line between governance and communal electoral engineering becomes dangerously thin. It attacks the basic democratic idea that every adult citizen’s vote has equal dignity.

At the same time, Assam’s campaign has combined welfare politics with majoritarian mobilisation. Al Jazeera described the BJP’s Assam strategy as a “cocktail of Hindutva and welfarism,” combining anti-Muslim politics with financial aid schemes aimed at women voters.

This is the new formula: cash comfort plus communal anxiety. The voter receives benefit as beneficiary, fear as identity, and command as political loyalty.

Bengal: The ‘Hindu EVM’ vs ‘Muslim EVM’ Poison

West Bengal, too, has seen a frightening sharpening of communal language. Suvendu Adhikari, now reported as West Bengal’s first BJP Chief Minister, has been associated with aggressively polarising campaign language. Media reports during the 2026 counting phase quoted him as saying that “Hindu EVM” votes were going to the BJP and “Muslim EVM” votes were going to the TMC.

That statement captures the tragedy of the moment. The EVM is supposed to be the neutral machine of citizenship. To divide it into “Hindu EVM” and “Muslim EVM” is to symbolically divide the republic itself.

Fact-check and media reports also documented Adhikari’s earlier communal rhetoric, including remarks framed around “Gaza-like” lessons and religious polarisation.

Bengal also shows the money dimension. The ECI’s 2026 data showed West Bengal with ₹573.41 crore in seizures, the highest among the listed states, and a 68.92% increase over the comparable 2021 figure.

The result is grim: a campaign environment where cash, fear, identity and intimidation become louder than employment, education, federalism, public health, industry, climate resilience or democratic rights.

The Global Pattern: Elections Without Fairness

India is not alone. The attached democracy documents place India inside a wider global decline of liberal democracy. The V-Dem Democracy Report 2026 says democracy for the average global citizen has returned to 1978 levels; there were 92 autocracies and 87 democracies by the end of 2025; 74% of humanity lived in autocracies; and only 7% lived in liberal democracies. V-Dem also says electoral democracy requires free and fair elections, universal suffrage, competitive parties, elected executives, and a level playing field sustained by freedom of expression and association.

The global pattern is clear: elected leaders increasingly use elections to weaken democracy from within. They capture media, bend institutions, criminalise dissent, polarise communities, attack minorities, and use state power to build permanent campaign machines. The ballot survives, but the level playing field dies. That is the essence of electoral autocracy.

Japan’s Lesson: Strict Rules Can Save the Vote

Japan is not a perfect democracy; it has had its own money-politics scandals. But it shows that a serious democracy can impose strict rules to reduce the influence of money and inducement. Comparative research by the U.S. Library of Congress notes that Japan limits both campaign contributions and campaign expenditures, and provides free campaign broadcasting time. It also documents Japan’s detailed spending-limit formulas for candidates and free broadcasting provisions for parties and candidates through NHK and other broadcasters.

Japan’s campaign rules are famously strict. Reports note that candidates cannot conduct door-to-door house visits, cannot give freebies beyond minor refreshments such as tea and sweets, face restrictions on street speeches, volunteers and printed materials, and can suffer severe consequences for vote buying. Former Japanese justice minister Katsuyuki Kawai was jailed for vote buying, showing that punishment can reach powerful politicians.

The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network notes that under Japan’s system, election results can be invalidated if campaign managers, accountants or secretaries are convicted of vote buying, and candidates may be barred from public office in the same district for five years.

That is deterrence. India’s problem is not a lack of rules. It is weak enforcement, delayed punishment and normalisation of violation.

What India Must Do: From Moral Code to Enforceable Democracy

India needs urgent electoral repair.

First, the MCC must be given sharper legal teeth for grave violations: communal hate speech, bribery, official misuse, targeted minority intimidation and repeated disinformation. The attached global democracy note specifically recommends statutory enforcement of the MCC, strict penalties for hate speech and communal appeals, and transparent campaign finance.

Second, campaign finance must be made fully transparent. Anonymous large donations should not return through another route. Party accounts must face independent audits. Party-level expenditure caps must be seriously considered, because candidate expenditure limits mean little when central party spending is unlimited.

Third, hate speech during elections must attract swift consequences: campaign bans, FIRs where legally applicable, withdrawal of star campaigner status, and public censure before polling, not years after the damage is done.

Fourth, criminal cases against candidates involving violence, intimidation, corruption and communal offences must be fast-tracked. The goal is not to deny due process, but to prevent endless delay from becoming a political weapon.

Fifth, India should expand free and equal public broadcast time for recognised parties and candidates, as Japan and several democracies do, so that elections are not entirely dependent on private money and media capture.

Sixth, the Election Commission’s appointment process and institutional independence must be restored to public confidence. The referee of democracy must not appear dependent on the executive team playing the match.

The Final Warning: A Vote Can Be Stolen Before It Is Cast

The biggest theft in modern democracy does not always happen inside the polling booth. It happens before polling day: when voters are bribed, threatened, divided, misinformed, communally inflamed, or made dependent on state patronage. It happens when hate becomes a campaign strategy. It happens when money becomes speech. It happens when muscle becomes organisation. It happens when the MCC becomes a polite document that everyone praises and powerful players violate.

Indian democracy is still alive because Indians still vote with passion. But voting alone cannot save democracy if the campaign itself becomes polluted. The republic must choose: either elections remain a constitutional festival of equal citizenship, or they become a five-yearly auction of fear, cash and hatred.

The MCC was designed to protect India’s democratic soul. Today, that soul needs enforcement, courage and public resistance—not after the election, but before the next violation becomes the new normal.

The author is a known academic and political commentator, based out of Kolkata.