The Election Commission of India plays a crucial role in organising elections. The most significant role of the Election Commission of India is to ensure free and fair elections as per the norms and the Model Code of Conduct. It is in charge of monitoring the actions and activities of the political parties and candidates and tries to ensure free, fair and transparent elections in India. The Election Commission is a constitutional body empowered to conduct free and fair elections under Article 324 of the Indian constitution.

Functions of the Election Commission of India:

1. Election Commission of India superintendents, direct and control the entire process of conducting elections to Parliament and Legislature of every State and to the offices of the President and Vice-President of India.
2. The most essential function of the commission is to decide the election schedules for the conduct of periodic and timely elections, whether general or bye-elections.
3. It prepares the electoral rolls and issues Electronic Photo Identity Cards (EPIC).
4. It decides on the location of polling stations, assignment of voters to the polling stations, location of counting centres, arrangements to be made in and around polling stations and counting centres and all allied matters.
5. It grants recognition to political parties & allots election symbols to them along with settling disputes related to it.
6. The Commission also has advisory jurisdiction in the matter of post-election disqualification of sitting members of Parliament and State Legislatures.
7. It issues the Model Code of Conduct in elections for political parties and candidates so that no one indulges in unfair practice or there is no arbitrary abuse of powers by those in power.
8. It sets limits on the campaign expenditure per candidate to all the political parties and also monitors the same.

Challenges faced by the Election Commission

• Suspension of norms of civility – and responsibility owing to the anonymous nature of the engagement on the internet and social media. Free and fair election is important not only for the expression of the will of people but also to maintain social cohesion and democratic values of equality, fraternity etc. Enforcing a Model Code of Conduct in such a scenario becomes extremely difficult. 
• Use of bots and unfair means to trend on social media – The immediacy of the engagement, with deep penetration through the device of posts going viral, sometimes, allegedly, owing to the deployment of bots, creates a challenge in conducting free and fair elections. 
• The phenomenon of fake news and misinformation – an important aspect of the role that social media are likely to play in the elections is the phenomenon of fake news and misinformation. The social rupture caused by such campaigns, including heightened insecurity for marginalised sections of society, is phenomenal.
• De-Institutionalization of the democratic structure – A relatively small financial cost lends the ability to a small number of users to bombard the electorate with party political messages with little political accountability or responsibility. The net impact is in geometric proportion to the number of such platforms deployed. The result is the de-institutionalization of the democratic structure and a strengthening of what Lloyd Rudolph and Susanne Rudolph call a command polity.
• Othering/marginalization of some sections – This is the space where othering takes place with impunity and with only a minuscule risk of social censure. Absolved of the responsibility to defend their views in an open arena of co-equal citizens, regressive actors are able to campaign for their political viewpoints from the safety of a smartphone.
• Dilution of public reasoning – the fulcrum of public reasoning is shifting to the construction of the other. It therefore becomes less important for political actors to propose their own programme of action and more important for them to contest characterizations by others.
• Allegations of hacking of EVMs – When it’s difficult to verify news and counter fake news, allegations like hacking of EVMs may gain traction. This will completely shake the credibility of the EC and erode trust in the election process.   

Efforts made by Election Commission

• Election Commission of India is empowered to cancel the elections or call for re-elections if any kind corruption or malpractices are found; this is the most powerful tool in the hands of election commission to make democracy possible in letter and spirit.
• To further improve the transparency in elections, Election Commission of India introduced Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) in 1999.
• In 2010, Election Commission of India accepted the recommendations of Indiresan committee to introduce Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) for further transparency.
• In the same line, the EC is currently considering the use of Totaliser Machines during elections to mask booth-wise voting patterns.
• Internet major Google and social media giants Twitter and Facebook have assured the Election Commission that they will not allow their platforms to be used for anything which affects the purity of polls during campaign period. It is another laudable effort of Election Commission of India to strengthen democracy.
• The last 48 hours before the elections come to a close is called ‘silence period’ so that voter can calmly decide on as to whom to vote. Google, Facebook, etc. also assured the EC that political advertisements will be flagged, including the amount spent, so that expenditure can also be accounted for during campaign period.

Similarly, some other efforts taken by Election Commission of India to strengthen the democracy by elections in India are, Model Code of Conduct, awareness campaigns, National Voters Day (25th Jan), Electoral Bonds, etc.

Some of the recent steps taken also include – 

• Banned prominent politicians from campaigning for a certain period in the recent Lok Sabha election. 
• Banned a biopic movie. 
• Banned election campaign in Kolkata due to eruption of violence. 
• SVEEP – Systematic voter’s education and electoral awareness program. 
• C-Vigil – to maintain the integrity of the election process. 
• Setup Media Certification and Monitoring Committee

ECI reform plan: For a level playing field

1. ECI is considering tightening ways to cap the expenditure of political parties. But even this can be meaningful only if there is more transparency in campaign finance which suggests that the electoral bonds system, as it is in place now, is untenable.
2. The ECI has suggested bringing social media and print media under the “silent period” ambit after campaign ends. Regulating social media will be difficult and it remains to be seen how the ECI will implement this.
3. The ECI also plans to introduce new “safe and secure” voting methods.
   • The use now of the EVM as a standalone, one-time programmable chip-based system, along with administrative safeguards renders it a safe mechanism that is not vulnerable to hacking. 
   • Any other “online” form of voting that is based on networked systems should be avoided
4. Aadhaar-Voter ID linkage to weed out duplications and misrepresentations from the electoral rolls – The idea of an Aadhaar-linked remote voting system that is sought to be built as a prototype could be problematic considering how the unique identity card has excluded genuine beneficiaries when used in welfare schemes
5. Amendments to Section 20(6) of the Representation of the People’s Act, 1951 to allow the husband of a female officer to be registered as a service voter where she holds office.
6. Granting powers to ECI to deregister a party
7. Greater autonomy to ECI

How Election Commission ensure free and fair elections in India?

1. Election Commission ensure free and fair election by enforcing and maintaining a model code of conduct before elections and punishes any candidate or party that violates it.
2. The Commission had gone to the extent of disciplining the political parties with a threat of de-recognising if the parties failed in maintaining inner-party democracy.
3. It upholds the values enshrined in the Constitution viz, equality, equity, impartiality, independence; and rule of law in superintendence, direction, and control over the electoral governance.
4. It conducts elections with the highest standard of credibility, freeness, fairness, transparency, integrity, accountability, autonomy and professionalism.
5. It ensures participation of all eligible citizens in the electoral process in an inclusive voter-centric and voter-friendly environment.
6. It engages with political parties and all stakeholders in the interest of the electoral process.
7. It creates awareness about the electoral process and electoral governance amongst stakeholders namely, voters, political parties, election functionaries, candidates and people at large; and to enhance and strengthen confidence and trust in the electoral system of this country.
8. During the times of elections, it can order the government to follow some guidelines towards making the elections free and fair.
9. At the time of election duty, the government officers work under the control of EC and not the ruling party.
10. The Commission approaches the government well in advance to obtain the names of senior officers for the purpose of appointment as observers before any election.
11. Commission via SVEEP, ECI engages more and more voters in the electoral process and ensure their ethical and inducement-free participation in voting.

For the last 15 years, the EC is exercising its powers to full potential and has even increased them. Today the free and fair elections are just because of the working of EC. The internal system of monitoring by neutral and senior government officers has become time tested and been proving to be very useful during elections. Over the years influence of money and criminal elements in politics has increased along with violence and electoral malpractices resulting in criminalisation of politics. The ECI has been able to arrest this but not completely.