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New Delhi: In August 2025, Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha (LoP), Rahul Gandhi alleged there were irregularities and even rigging in the voter list of Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly constituency. He urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to provide machine-readable voter lists and insisted that CCTV footage from polling booths should not be destroyed.

During a rally, he raised concerns about the practice of destroying CCTV footage and video evidence.

In response, ECI said that any aggrieved candidate may file an election petition with the relevant high court within 45 days to contest their election outcome. If such a petition is filed, the CCTV footage is preserved as evidence. Otherwise, there was no reason to retain it, unless the intention is to violate a voter’s privacy.

Shortly thereafter, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar also cited privacy concerns and asked, “Should the election commission share CCTV footage of any voter – regardless of whether that individual is one’s mother, daughter-in-law or daughter?”

However, this was not the first instance in which the ECI attempted to restrict public access to CCTV footage from polling stations and video recordings of the electoral process. Invoking privacy served as a smokescreen behind which the commission sought refuge as questions about the transparency of the electoral process grew louder.

About eight months ago, in December 2024, the ECI amended the rules regarding CCTV footage and video recordings citing the following two reasons:

Firstly, requests to obtain such recordings were steadily increasing.

Secondly, providing them required significant administrative resources and manpower.

However, in response to a query filed under the Right to Information Act, the same ECI has now stated that it does not possess any data regarding the number of such requests received over the past five years.

In its response dated September 14, 2026, the ECI stated that it does not possess data “in any material form” regarding the number of applications or requests seeking CCTV footage from polling stations and counting centres.

This response holds considerable significance because, precisely two years ago, the commission itself justified the modification of regulations to restrict public access to CCTV and electoral video recordings by citing an alleged increase in such requests and the resulting administrative burden.

So now the question is not just whether CCTV footage ought to be made publicly accessible. It’s also this: if the number of people requesting footage and the scale of such requests were important enough to justify changing the rules, then what record, data or study was that “large scale” assessment based on?

What did the commission say before changing the rules?

After “consultation with the Election Commission,” the Union government modified the election conduct rules on December 20, 2024. Under this amendment, just five words were added to Rule 93(2)(a) of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 – ‘As specified in these........

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