Dear Express reader, Through all of the week that has gone by, two headlines dominated. Both were sobering. Coronavirus is staging a resurgence, with cases rising again in Maharashtra, Punjab, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Haryana — especially in Maharashtra. The Centre categorised 11 states/UTs as “states of grave concern” and several states have imposed new curbs on movement. There are apprehensions that multiple mutations of the virus, a lowering of guard by a weary people, and the spread of infection to rural areas with weaker health infrastructure could sharpen the corona challenge. At the same time, assembly elections to four states and the UT of Puducherry continue to frame a surge of another kind — of shrill, accusing, partisan rhetoric. It is not just filling the electoral fray, but spilling beyond it too, to touch and taint offices and institutions that must be, must be seen to be, above the fray. Like the office of prime minister. Like the Election Commission. The virus’s surge is worrying. But it could be asked: Aren’t elections like this only, in a country like India, teeming with parties and issues, bitter and hotly contested? Yes, and not really. The prime minister is, naturally, his party’s star campaigner, nothing controversial about that. Yet, the sheer in-your-face aggression that Narendra Modi brings to the poll campaign — “Didi … o Didi…” he challenges TMC’s Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal — and the fact that the BJP campaign he leads is invariably a polarising one, makes PM-in-the-election a more remarkable, and yes, a more discomfiting phenomenon than it has been in recent times. Of course, the comparison to recent times is an unequal one — Modi’s predecessor was PM in a PMO that had institutionalised an unnatural division of power at the very top of government. Manmohan Singh held formal power, but the line of ownership and accountability was blurred and smudged unaccountably by the power-sharing arrangement with the leader who had appointed him, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. But if an artificial line was drawn then, there is a sense of a line being crossed now. Then, it was the one that cut through the heart of the PMO. Now, it is the one that separates Party from the PM. The buffeting of the Election Commission by poll winds, and the perception that it is not fully standing its ground and keeping its balance, is even more bruising for a democracy. In the last week, there were two instances when the EC seemed to falter. First, when an EVM was found in the vehicle of a BJP candidate in Assam. And then when the Commission relaxed a ban on BJP star campaigner and candidate in Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, from 48 hours to 24. The EC suspended four officials and ordered a repeal in the case of the EVM that was taken for a BJP ride. But the questions raised by the leniency shown to Sarma have not been fully addressed. The EC ranks among India’s most trusted institutions and that trust has been extremely hard won. It has also held firm, through all the ups and downs of vigorous electoral democracy. The onus is on the Commission to maintain its stature. It must address each doubt, answer every question. Till next week, Vandita | 
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