Elections in postcolonial India have been a fascinating affair—for scholars, Indian voters, as well as the international audience and observers. They commenced in an era when newly independent India was emerging from a bloody partition and, despite the widespread episodes of sectarian violence and its limited experience with the idea and processes of republicanism, it made the principled choice of universal adult franchise as the foundation of its democratic project. Materialising the idea into reality required an inexperienced Election Commission of India (‘ECI’) to gather a team and develop all processes from scratch, recruit and train thousands of government employees to reach every corner of the country to register and induct a largely illiterate audience1 into this process, and, most importantly, seek the enthusiastic participation of this new right-bearing population, who were still wondering about the value of their single vote. All of this had to be done while ensuring that a halo of legal and societal legitimacy surrounded the process, both domestically and internationally. To the surprise of many, the mighty ECI achieved this feat within two years of its constitution in January 1950.2 Aptly calling it an ‘act of faith’, the ECI noted in its report on the first general election,