Sociologist Nandini Sundar, Delhi University, speaking at the 16th Memorial meeting of Remembering Balagopal event at Sundarayya Vignana Kendram, in Hyderabad on Sunday.
| Photo Credit: RAMAKRISHNA G
India had already entered a competitive authoritarian phase before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections — “dictatorship prevailing between elections and democracy appearing episodically”, or the government undermining democratic institutions.
And although the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power through a “plebiscite on Modi ji (Prime Minister Narendra Modi)”, the people’s verdict did expose a clear no against it, hence the government designed its three initiatives, political thinker and Swaraj Abhiyan founding member Yogendra Yadav said on Sunday.
“These three initiatives – One Nation-One Election (ONOE), Delimitation, and Special Intensive Revision (SIR) form an architecture design for the BJP to guarantee elections that will always produce desired outcomes,” he said.
Mr. Yadav was speaking on challenges to the architecture of electoral democracy at the 16th memorial meeting of renowned human rights activist K. Balagopal here at Sundarayya Vignana Kendram on Sunday.
ONOE will help BJP remove the pressure of frequent polls and merge voting patterns; delimitation, while reducing the voice from southern India, will take care of the regional issue and tilt parliamentary representation; and SIR will take care of the problem of sections of society who are not aligned with its ideas, and leading to disenfranchising them by shifting the burden of voter registration onto citizens, he argued.
At the meeting, professor of Sociology at Delhi University Nandini Sundar presented the struggle of Adivasis for a future in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh. She said the very existence of tribals in the region has become questionable, and their rights are being trampled upon. Ms. Sundar said that the government was closely implementing the transfer of mineral resources to corporates, forcing Bastar region into internal migration and plundering its resources, for destructive development.
Apar Gupta from Internet Freedom Foundation spoke on Artificial Intelligence and privacy and PS Ajay Kumar from All India Lawyers Association for Justice spoke on new forms of land theft.
The meeting also screened a short film on Palestine and launched a book on the Constitution by K. Balagopal.
Published – October 12, 2025 09:52 pm IST
