The fork in the CEC protest road: Both Opposition and government need to decide

The protests against the Chief Election Commissioner and his conduct of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls prise open a black box, shine the light on a vital institution. Coming close on the heels of the agitation against the NEET paper leaks, they are unlocking the public square, letting the hum and noise of democracy seep back in. For years, the ruling BJP has used its imposing electoral mandates to claim that the voices of those who have lost the elections don't matter, need not be heard. Opposition, both with a small and big "o", has been squeezed by an establishment that weaponises poll victories to conquer institutions and subdue countervailing forces.

But amid the recurring protest and crackdown, you also hear sounds of an impasse settling in. Politics is becoming unfrozen, but it seems headed into deadlock. It is running up against closures while opening spaces.

The players in this battle of unequals -- the mighty government is wielding its strong arm against the so-far demoralised Congress-led opposition parties and civil-society groups steered by the half-formed Cockroach Janta Party -- don't acknowledge each other except in apocalyptic terms. Neither concedes any space for manoeuvre to the opponent, nor recognises the possibility of common or middle ground. The essential staples of negotiation are missing.

Day after day, the government lets the police speak for it, or hurls "anarchist" and "foreign hand" at the other side. Congress and others -- who are not always on the same page -- have hit back with "regime change", which means a transition of power through elections, but also by short-circuiting them via the street. Bangladesh 2024 and Nepal 2025 framed the grievous toll of the second scenario in India's neighbourhood. But more than the Opposition's unwise use of a freighted term, what must worry both government and Opposition is this: The many stark images of protests being quelled by a repressive state could be wreaking long-term damage on people's trust in institutions and processes. They could sharpen the disconnect between the young and legislatures or parties.

In the near term, what makes the current deadlock more problematic is its timing: Parliamentary elections are still about two and a half years away. The stage is set, in the absence of a breakthrough, for a confrontation that could be long and enervating.

The government sets its face against a dialogue or compromise arguably because the Election Commission's (mis)conduct of the SIR, the disenfranchisement of large numbers of voters and question marks on free and fair elections add up to an issue that potentially cuts deep, much more than the matter of examination leaks. The CJP struck spectacular success in its very first outing, the NEET protests forced a minister to resign. That early triumph is coming in the way of any give and take in its second coming. It doesn't suit Congress to relent, either, because this momentum is so hard-won for a party that has suffered serial electoral defeats, and for Rahul Gandhi, painted into a corner for long by the well-resourced BJP machine.

The government's refusal to engage with protesters could also be stony because it calculates that, unlike the NEET issue, no great sparks have been struck on the ground, so far, by Rahul Gandhi's campaign of "vote chori", which predates the SIR and now folds it in. Travelling in UP in June, just as the sit-in over NEET was growing bigger at Jantar Mantar, it seemed clear that the issue affected many more than just those who took the exam. For large numbers of the young and not-so-young, the episode was symbolic of a larger closing of opportunities.

On the other hand, while reporting on the elections in Bihar and West Bengal, where the ECI's rollout of the SIR had become controversial, it was evident that "vote chori" had not become the main or decisive issue. In an election filled with over-promising campaigns, Bihar saw voters return to Nitish Kumar, the chief minister who had delivered, undeterred by the fact that his political imagination had plateaued or that age and illness had taken a toll on him. In West Bengal, the large-scale and apparently targeted deletions of voters in the name of weeding out the "ghuspaithiya" could not make it a David-vs-Goliath contest between a helpless Didi and the mighty BJP-ECI. People's grievances accumulated over 15 years against the powerful and pervasive TMC network made it, more, an election in which Didi defeated Didi and the BJP was the beneficiary.

After a 12-year incumbency, the Modi government also faces rising discontents across states, even as cracks are beginning to show within the power phalanx in Delhi. The current protests count on a joining together of these several resentments -- over a broken education system, inadequate productive and dignified employment, price rise sharpened by a distant war, corruption, a climate of fear for critics, opponents and minorities. Earlier, there were signs of these grievances gathering around the issue of NEET.

It is not just that, on the ground, "vote chori" does not seem as much of a lightning rod. It is also that, then and now, the anti-Modi sentiments are still punctuated by support for Modi, and by the force of the BJP's narratives. In UP, Chief Minister Yogi's still-touted successes on law and order, which is also a euphemism for Muslim-baiting, and the inability of his main opponent, Akhilesh Yadav, to cast a wider net across castes and communities, could come in the way of a consolidation of anti-incumbency.

Going ahead, then, the Congress-led Opposition must make a political judgement. Should they keep their demand focused on the steps the Modi government needs to take to ensure that elections are more free and more fair, beginning with recasting the appointment process of election commissioners? The problem, here, is that institutional reform, as worthy a goal as it is, cannot be easily or immediately packaged to the people as a victory. Should they widen the agenda, then, to include other discontents? They will make the stakes more picturesque, but may not gather around ECI/SIR/vote chori quite as readily.

The government needs to ask if it should reach out to protestors and make specific amends, and perhaps nudge other institutions, especially the Court, to also address the concerns of accountability. Or should it ride out the protests, hoping that they will exhaust themselves, or hit their limits?

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For both sides, the upcoming elections early next year in UP and Punjab, among other states, could bring a moment of reckoning. It needs to be seen whether the Opposition keeps up the clamour of "vote chori" if the AAP wins again in Punjab, or if the SP-Congress make significant gains against the BJP in UP.

On the other side, the BJP has invested enormous effort and resources in building its election machine and honing its focus on UP. Can it risk the shadow over the ECI clouding a much-coveted victory? It could take an election to loosen the impasse over elections eventually.