Electoral reforms

Electoral reform in India is the accumulated attempt to answer one question: how much should the referee be allowed to reshape the game? The reform record splits cleanly by who drove it. Reforms constraining candidates — disclosure of assets and criminal cases, instant disqualification on conviction — came from the Supreme Court. Reforms constraining parties — funding transparency, inner-party democracy, state funding — require Parliament, and have largely stalled there.

The committee record is long and the implementation record is short: Goswami (1990), Indrajit Gupta (1998), the Law Commission's 255th report (2015), and twenty-two proposals still pending with the Law Ministry, some dating to 2004.