6 min readOct 7, 2026 03:34 PM IST First published on: Oct 7, 2026 at 03:33 PM ISTIn recent weeks, with the revelations about the Election Commission’s troubling conduct and the disenfranchisement of 13 crore voters by unfair means, a provocative debate has emerged. Some are questioning whether opposition parties should continue participating in elections at all, under conditions they claim are fundamentally compromised. Critics point to the systematic erosion of democratic safeguards, the apparent capture of key institutions by mala fide elements, and a playing field tilted heavily in favour of the government. Why should the Opposition, they ask, legitimise a system they believe has been captured by participating in a rigged process?To these critics, continuing to contest elections under the present administration would be an empty ritual that grants a veneer of democratic legitimacy to what they characterise as a “managed democracy”. They argue for an electoral boycott, saying such a course is rooted in moral clarity; by walking away from the ballot box, the Opposition would withhold the democratic stamp of approval that the ruling power relies upon to justify its authority both domestically and internationally. A boycott, from this perspective, is not an act of surrender, but a strategy of non-cooperation designed to expose institutional decay, delegitimise the regime, and shock the public into recognising an existential threat to our democracy.AdvertisementAlso Read | Can the Election Commission untie knots of its own making?Yet, this logic, however passionately argued, rests on a basic misreading of political power and the nature of state institutions. As the great French diplomat Talleyrand famously observed, “les absents ont toujours tort” — the missing ones are always wrong. To voluntarily withdraw from the electoral arena is not to delegitimise the governing power; it is simply to leave an uncontested field for political opponents to assume untrammelled control over the instruments of the state. In a system where power is derived from constitutional mechanisms, abandoning the battleground means forfeiting every leverage available to protect citizens, influence policy, and hold authority to account. A boycott does not stop the government machinery; it merely removes the challenges that an active opposition generates within it.The historical precedent often invoked by proponents of boycotts — Gandhiji and the Indian freedom struggle — illustrates why such a strategy fails in a sovereign republic. Boycotts and civil disobedience were effective tools against British colonial rule because the oppressor was an occupying foreign power. In rejecting a subsidiary role that would have enabled colonial rule, the nationalists demonstrated its complete lack of moral authority. In that context, boycotts were meant to shame the colonial government by exposing the inadequacy of the limited representation it offered.However, a strategy designed against an alien occupier cannot be applied to a sovereign democracy where political actors share a common citizenship and operate under a shared constitutional framework. The Indian National Congress itself recognised this distinction during the Independence movement. While it boycotted elections under the restrictive Montagu-Chelmsford reforms of 1919 to reject a flawed system that enshrined colonial tokenism, it actively chose to participate in the elections under the Government of India Act of 1935, despite limited franchise and communal electorates. Indian leaders recognised that refusing to contest would hand the right of representation to less worthy forces and abandon the public to unmediated colonial authority. In our contemporary constitutional system, choosing non-participation against domestic rivals is not a moral stand, but a spectacular act of self-emasculation.AdvertisementBeyond the misapplication of history, advocating electoral boycott ignores the practical realities of democratic survival. First, political parties are dynamic organisations sustained by public engagement, cadre morale, and local leadership. Abstaining from elections starves a party of its essential lifeblood. Without campaigns to organise around, candidates to field, or local offices to fight for, political cadres will disperse, local networks collapse, and financial resources dry up. Rebuilding an organisational machine after years of non-participation is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. A party that retreats from the field of contestation rapidly renders itself irrelevant to the voters it seeks to represent.you may likeSecond, electoral participation remains the primary mechanism for public mobilisation and civic education. Even under imperfect conditions, election campaigns provide a unique platform to raise critical issues, expose executive overreach, and present alternative visions for the country. When opposition leaders take election campaigns to the streets, hold rallies, and debate policies, they keep democratic discourse alive. Ceding this space entirely to the ruling party guarantees that only one narrative reaches the public, further solidifying the government’s grip on popular consciousness and leaving voters who are dissatisfied with the status quo without a voice or a vehicle for change.Furthermore, participating in elections does not mean accepting institutional flaws with blind faith. Rather, it provides the necessary foundation for resisting them. History shows that electoral authoritarians and dominant parties are rarely weakened by moral appeals or voluntary abstentions; they are challenged, constrained, and ultimately defeated through persistent, organised resistance at the ballot box. Even in highly uneven contests across the globe, opposition participation has frequently exposed the limits of ruling power, forced unexpected concessions, created internal friction within ruling coalitions, and preserved institutional footholds that later served as launchpads for political renewal. Take Hungary this year: Despite facing an illiberal system engineered to entrench Viktor Orbán’s rule, the Hungarian opposition refused to abandon the ballot box, contesting elections and exposing the regime’s failings, ultimately mobilising to deliver a landslide victory. Illiberal autocracies are dismantled through competitive endurance, not voluntary retreat.Democracy is not a fragile artefact that can be preserved by hiding it away from flawed contests; it is a muscle that strengthens only through continuous exercise. Complaining about electoral irregularities and demanding institutional accountability are not signs of naive credulity, but the necessary duties of a democratic opposition. To fight in the arena, despite the odds, biases, and structural disadvantages, is the only way for Indian democrats to safeguard the republic. To abstain from contesting would mean handing victory to those who seek to redefine the nation’s destiny without resistance. We must not abandon the field to them.The writer is a fourth-term Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram