The Politics of Winning and Explaining
Editor,
In March 2002, during the SAARC Information Ministers’ Conference in Islamabad, Pakistani journalist Syed Talat Hussain attempted to corner Sushma Swaraj, then India’s Minister of Information and Broadcasting, on his prime-time programme, News Night. The discussion soon turned into a heated exchange over Kashmir and cross-border terrorism.
Swaraj, drew on her knowledge of Urdu and political composure and responded to one provocation by saying that answering it would require a harsh reply, but that, as a guest in Pakistan, she would not violate her country’s code of conduct. Towards the end of the programme, Talat produced a piece of paper, claiming that it contained draft resolutions capable of ending hostilities in Kashmir and bringing lasting peace to the region. India’s refusal to sign, he suggested, was the reason South Asia remained perpetually on the brink of war. Swaraj’s response was: negotiations produce many drafts, but unless the concerned parties agree to and sign them, those drafts remain just drafts.
This was a lesson in how negotiations actually work. A proposal is not an agreement merely until the parties agree to its terms and lend their signatures to it. Leaders like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley represented a political generation that could combine electoral ambition with the ability to argue, explain and defend a position. Before their emergence as nationally prominent figures, sections of the BJP leadership were frequently caricatured for their appearance, accents or unfamiliarity with the idiom of national political discourse. Whatever one thought of their politics, Swaraj and Jaitley demonstrated that intellectual confidence and persuasive communication could command respect beyond the party’s traditional support base.
Fast-forward to 2026, and the BJP remains an electoral powerhouse but the party’s ability to win elections is not matched by an equally impressive ability to explain its decisions to a sceptical public?
The BJP’s political influence is such that elected representatives, including MLAs, MPs and members of district councils gravitate towards it even outside election season. But electoral success and persuasive public reasoning are not the same thing. A leader may be exceptionally effective at building political coalitions and still struggle to explain why a controversial institutional arrangement is in the public interest. Consider the selection of the Chief Election Commissioner. Under the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, the selection committee comprises the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. The Chief Justice of India, who was part of the interim selection arrangement prescribed by the Supreme Court before Parliament enacted the law, was removed as member of the statutory committee. Hence the selection committee is already tilted in favour of the government. A law can be operative but still be open to criticism over its institutional design.
The controversy surrounding the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls raises similar questions. The Indian Express reported 14 instances in which Election Commissioners recorded objections concerning aspects of the process or related decisions. The Election Commission maintained that its decisions were unanimous. The reported objections do not, by themselves, establish that the final decisions were unlawful, but they point to a lack of transparency.
How would Sushma Swaraj or Arun Jaitley have handled such a controversy? We can only speculate. But it is reasonable to expect that leaders of their calibre would have understood that institutional credibility cannot be secured by dismissing questions or repeating official assurances. They would have had to engage with the substance of the criticism. They might also have questioned the wisdom of replacing the Chief Justice of India in the selection arrangement with a Cabinet minister, even while defending the government’s broader position.
Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi has spent much of his political career attacking the government on an expansive range of subjects: economic policy, crony capitalism, governance, institutional integrity, social justice, national security, foreign policy, agriculture and youth welfare. For years, his criticism has often struggled to translate into a sustained political advantage against the formidable Modi-Shah combination. The controversy surrounding the Election Commission now offers him an opportunity. The irony is that the issue does not necessarily require the opposition leader to reinvent himself or produce a comprehensive alternative vision of governance. He needs only to persuade enough citizens that the independence of the institution conducting their elections deserves greater protection.
His absence from the statutory selection committee for Gyanesh Kumar has, in that sense, become a political advantage. It allows him to question the selection process without having to defend the committee’s composition as a participant. Whether he can turn that advantage into a credible, sustained campaign is another matter. Political opportunity, however, is not the same as political competence.
On October 12, 2026, reports stated that the Supreme Court registry had flagged 14 procedural defects in a joint petition filed by Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders challenging alleged voter deletions and irregularities associated with the SIR. The reported defects included documentation and court-fee issues, and the petition could not proceed to listing until the necessary requirements were addressed. For a political movement demanding accountability from a constitutional institution, such lapses are hardly reassuring. An opposition that questions the competence and impartiality of public institutions must demonstrate comparable seriousness in its own legal and procedural work. If the challenge is important enough to take to the Supreme Court, it is important enough to prepare properly. Yet the distinction between procedural competence and substantive merit must be maintained. A defective petition does not prove that the allegations it contains are false, just as a well-prepared petition does not prove that those allegations are true. The procedural lapses give the government an easy talking point, but they do not settle the underlying questions about electoral-roll revision or the Election Commission’s functioning.
Nor is there sufficient evidence to infer that the defects were deliberately engineered to delay proceedings or facilitate a political bargain. Such suggestions may make for entertaining political speculation, but they cannot substitute for evidence.
There was a time when the stock response to uncomfortable questions was that the matter was sub-judice and therefore could not be discussed. Today, the political contest often begins well before a court has an opportunity to examine the merits. Allegations become slogans, procedural mistakes become ammunition, and the public is invited to choose sides before the facts have been fully established.
The BJP cannot expect its electoral dominance to exempt it from explaining the institutional consequences of its decisions. Rahul Gandhi cannot expect his role as opposition leader to exempt him from the elementary discipline required to pursue a serious legal challenge. Both sides must be judged by standards that apply regardless of who occupies the treasury benches.
The larger problem is that public debate increasingly resembles a contest in political performance rather than a serious examination of public affairs. The government seeks to establish that its critics are incompetent; the opposition seeks to establish that the government is untrustworthy. Meanwhile, the questions that prompted the controversy—how electoral institutions should be protected, how voter-roll revisions should be scrutinised, and how public confidence can be maintained—risk becoming secondary to the daily spectacle.
And so, the public gets its entertainment. One side insists that its majority settles the argument; the other insists that its allegations settle it. Each claims the moral high ground, each discovers the other’s procedural shortcomings, and each hopes the next controversy will be the one that finally changes the political equation. Perhaps ‘All Iz Well’ is the appropriate soundtrack not because everything is well, but because everyone on stage appears determined to convince us that it is.
Yours etc.,
Narottam Subedi,
Via email