Seshan cleaned up Indian elections by enforcing old laws

By 1990, India's elections were routinely distorted by what everyone could see: booths captured by armed gangs in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, ballot boxes stolen, liquor distributed to voters, candidates spending far beyond legal limits with impunity. The laws against all of it existed; enforcement did not, because the people who would have had to order it were the people who had won the last election using the same methods. Reform proposals stalled for years — the legislators asked to outlaw rigging were its graduates.

T. N. Seshan arrived as Chief Election Commissioner in 1990, an insider — an IAS officer who had risen to cabinet secretary — and opened with an audit: his first analysis counted 150 specific abuses in the electoral system. When India's politicians proved reluctant to legislate reform, he did not wait for them. He re-read the Election Commission's existing constitutional mandate as broadly as its words allowed, treated every dormant clause as live ammunition, and set about cleansing the Augean stables of Indian democracy one election at a time.

Enforced existing laws: central police, staggered polls, audited accounts, liquor bans, cancelled tainted votes — no new legislation, just stretching his mandate.

Existing laws already prohibited rigging, but were ignored.

Enforcement needed no parliamentary approval, bypassing the corrupt legislature.

Central forces and audits raised the cost of rigging, deterring offenders.

Cancelling tainted elections showed the commission's resolve, further deterring fraud.

When rule-breakers control lawmaking, enforce existing rules to the fullest instead of seeking new ones.

Booth-capturing and bogus voting collapsed; liquor and guns vanished from poll season; more Indians voted — and impeachment attempts failed.