On institutions, a stark hypocrisy from Congress

Judges superseded for their rulings. A press censored. Elected governments dismissed. An Election Commissioner shielded and promoted over the CEC’s objection. This is not a list of isolated lapses. It is a way of governing, practised for decades

Those alleging a captured Election Commission, caged agencies and a threatened Constitution must first answer: What did they do when they held power?

Written by: Mohan Charan Majhi

4 min readOct 27, 2026 06:55 AM IST First published on: Oct 27, 2026 at 06:55 AM IST

The Congress party has discovered institutions. After seven decades in which it treated the judiciary, investigating agencies, the Election Commission and even the press as extensions of the ruling family’s will, it now holds marches to defend their independence. It is the arsonist protesting at the fire station. The record is long. A few chapters are enough.

On April 25, 1973, a day after the Supreme Court delivered the Kesavananda Bharati judgment, the Indira Gandhi government announced that Justice A N Ray would be Chief Justice of India. To appoint him, it passed over three judges, all of whom had ruled against the government. All three resigned. Law Minister Mohan Kumaramangalam had formulated the notion of a “committed judiciary”, in which the government should weigh a judge’s philosophy and outlook, not only his integrity. In 1977, at the height of the Emergency, it happened again. Justice H R Khanna, the lone dissenter in the ADM Jabalpur case, was passed over for the chief justiceship. He resigned. The judges who sided with the government in that case rose in their turn.

From 1975 to 1977, Congress suspended liberty, censored the press, and detained political opponents without trial, and the highest court endorsed it. Every later claim by Congress to be the guardian of constitutional values has to be read against those 21 months. The abuse of Article 356 began early. The elected government of Kerala was dismissed in 1959, and in 1980 Indira Gandhi dismissed nine opposition-led state governments after returning to power. The Governor’s office became a tool to remove governments the voters had chosen and the party disliked.

After the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the Rajiv Gandhi government took months to appoint a commission, and then chose a sitting SC judge, Ranganath Misra. His commission conceded that Congress workers had taken part in the violence, but nothing more. Misra later joined Congress and entered the Rajya Sabha.

The pattern held with the Election Commission. In October 1989, a month before polling, Rajiv Gandhi’s government created two additional Election Commissioner posts, seen as an effort to curb the then CEC, R V S Peri Sastri, with whom it had fallen out. When Congress lost, both posts were abolished within weeks. In 1993, the Narasimha Rao government repeated the exercise when T N Seshan became inconvenient. Then came Navin Chawla. In 2006, L K Advani and more than 200 MPs sought his removal for alleged partisanship. In January 2009, CEC N Gopalaswami formally recommended his removal. The UPA rejected it and appointed Chawla CEC in April, just before the general election.

In September 2013, Rahul Gandhi publicly called the Manmohan Singh government’s ordinance protecting convicted legislators “ complete nonsense” and said it should be torn up. The extrao intervention undermined the PM’s authority, raising questions about Congress’s respect for constitutional offices.

Judges superseded for their rulings. A press censored. Elected governments dismissed. An inquiry chairman rewarded. An investigating agency caged. An Election Commissioner shielded and promoted over the CEC’s objection. This is not a list of isolated lapses. It is a way of governing, practised for decades by a party that regarded institutions as its own. Those alleging a captured Election Commission, caged agencies and a threatened Constitution must first answer: What did they do when they held power?