The incident is the latest episode in a troubling list of such transgressions that mark the track record of this government. Since the arrival of the Modi-led BJP administration in 2014, autonomous public institutions have been systematically compromised and hollowed out, through a combination of:

• unconstitutional influence (as we have seen with the EC, the Reserve Bank of India and elements of our judiciary);

• interference through handpicked appointments (as in the Indian Council of Historical Research, the Lalit Kala Academy or Jawaharlal Nehru University, leave alone the fiefdoms of the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate);

• the use of inertia to disembowel autonomous bodies by leaving key posts vacant or arrogating to the executive the right to set salaries and determine tenures (as seen with the Information Commission at the Centre and the states); or

• blatantly appropriating them to serve the government’s political interests (as we have seen with the Armed Forces and the Fourth Estate).

This is not the first time that the Election Commission has fallen prey to the government’s steady assault on our institutions.

The worry for the Opposition is that the latest episode could be a harbinger of something similar again.

A quarter-century ago, the Commission had introduced a Code of Conduct that prohibits government expenditure to impress voters once election dates are announced. With the BJP, which was in power at both the Centre and in the state of Gujarat at the time, scrambling to attract voters in the election-bound state through last-minute schemes and pre-election freebies, the EC came under pressure to delay the election announcement there as long as possible. Giving in, it surprisingly declared the dates for elections in Himachal Pradesh, a state that normally goes to the polls at the same time as Gujarat, 13 days before the latter, citing a specious need to permit flood relief work in Gujarat (which the Code of Conduct would not have disallowed).

Former Election Commissioners condemned the decision unanimously, even as the Gujarat government and the Prime Minister himself took advantage of the delay to announce a series of pre-election giveaways. In the event, the BJP scraped through in Gujarat, though it came perilously close to losing its majority.

BJP protestations of innocence strain credulity because those leading the executive today have a track record of seeking to bend the EC to their wishes.

In the 2002 Gujarat election campaign, when the EC, wary of the communal tensions in the state, refused then-Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s call for early elections, the latter launched a public tirade against the then-Chief Election Commisioner J.M Lyngdoh, highlighting his Christian background and suggesting that he was favouring minorities in the state by not calling for early state elections. (This prompted a sharp dressing down from his own party leader and then-Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

The concern that under BJP rule the EC was behaving like a government department became more acute when two years ago, the Delhi High Court threw out an EC decision to disqualify 20 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) members of the Delhi Legislative Assembly on technical grounds, an action that could have benefited the BJP had by-elections to their seats followed. The Court termed the decision ‘bad in law’ and ‘violating principles of natural justice’.

How has an institution hailed widely as an impartial custodian of India’s democratic process allowed itself to be brought to such a sorry pass? The answer lay clearly with the ruling party at the Centre, seen as pressurising the institution to act according to its wishes.

In the latest episode, the failure cuts both ways. While it was imperative that the PMO desist from its deplorable assumption of authority over the Election Commission, it was equally important for the CEC to stand firmly on the issue of its autonomy and refuse the PMO’s summons. The EC, after all, is not a body that should feel obliged to comply with such a demand by the PMO or any part of the executive.

And as many knowledgeable authorities, including former CEC SY Quraishi, have pointed out, there were certain protocols that should have been adhered to had such a meeting been unavoidable. For instance, the appropriate manner would have been for the PMO to request to call on the EC, rather than the other way round. Specific issues that required clarification could have also been elicited through written responses from the body.

Both avenues were ignored and, to make matters worse, the government is still yet to offer any clarification on what exactly transpired during the meeting and what matters were discussed.

The grave danger posed by such episodes is that the confidence that the people of India have in autonomous bodies like the Election Commission will erode steadily and, in doing so, weaken the very pillars of the democracy that we take for granted today.

As I have argued in my book, The Battle of Belonging, political parties and ruling powers will come and go, but these institutions are the enduring pillars of any democracy, whose independence, integrity and professionalism are meant to inure them from political pressures of the day.

India faces major challenges, but our democratic evolution will be undermined if the current government continues on this dangerous path of eroding the pillars that have held up our system of government since independence.