Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP P Chidambaram has raised concerns over India’s position on the Electoral Democracy Index, citing the country’s 106th rank among 179 nations in the latest assessment by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute.

Chidambaram highlighted the ranking in a post on X, pointing to what he described as India’s lowest democracy index score since 1975. The V-Dem Democracy Report 2026 assigns India a score of 0.38 on the Electoral Democracy Index for 2025, placing it 106th globally. 

Chidambaram highlights V-Dem assessment

Sharing the findings, Chidambaram said the latest figures required no further comment, drawing attention to both India's ranking and its historical score.

The Congress leader's remarks come amid an ongoing political debate over the condition of democratic institutions, electoral processes, freedom of expression and political competition in India.

The V-Dem assessment is an international academic measurement of democracy and is separate from India's official electoral institutions. Its Electoral Democracy Index measures the extent to which political leaders are elected through free and fair elections while also considering freedoms of association and expression. (Our World in Data)

India ranked 106th among 179 countries

According to the 2026 V-Dem assessment, India stood at 106th position out of 179 countries on the Electoral Democracy Index, with a score of 0.38.

The report also placed India at 105th on the Liberal Democracy Index, with a score of 0.26. V-Dem categorised India as an electoral autocracy in its classification of political regimes. 

V-Dem's framework evaluates democracy through several dimensions, including electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative and egalitarian principles. The institute says its methodology goes beyond simply examining whether elections are held and uses a large set of indicators to assess different aspects of democratic governance. 

Report examines democratic conditions

The V-Dem Democracy Report 2026, titled Unraveling The Democratic Era?, is produced by the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

The institute's assessment tracks changes in democratic conditions across countries and uses expert-coded data to construct its various democracy indices. Its Electoral Democracy Index specifically focuses on the extent to which citizens can choose political leaders through competitive elections and whether key freedoms associated with electoral democracy are protected. 

India classified as electoral autocracy

The V-Dem report's classification of India as an electoral autocracy has previously been a point of political debate. The latest assessment continues that classification while placing India 106th on the Electoral Democracy Index.

The report also points to concerns over freedom of expression, media independence, civil society and political competition as factors associated with India's democratic trajectory. These are findings of V-Dem's assessment and should be distinguished from the positions of Indian political parties on the subject. 

Congress has repeatedly raised democracy concerns

Chidambaram's comments come against the backdrop of repeated criticism by Congress leaders over what they describe as a decline in democratic institutions and electoral safeguards.

The opposition party has also raised concerns about electoral processes and the functioning of institutions, while the government and its supporters have rejected allegations of democratic decline.

The latest V-Dem ranking is therefore likely to become another point of political debate, with the opposition using the international assessment to question the state of Indian democracy.

What the ranking measures

The Electoral Democracy Index is scored on a scale from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating a greater degree of electoral democracy. V-Dem defines the measure in terms of free and fair elections, comprehensive suffrage and freedoms of association and expression. 

The ranking should therefore be read as an assessment produced under V-Dem's methodology rather than as an official determination of the quality or legitimacy of India's elections. India's 106th position and the 0.38 score are the specific figures highlighted by Chidambaram in his criticism of the country's democratic trajectory.

Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP P Chidambaram on Tuesday highlighted India's 106th rank among 179 countries on the Electoral Democracy Index, citing the latest assessment by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute.Chidambaram said the score was India's lowest since 1975. In a post on X, he wrote that India ranked 106th on the index and that V-Dem's democracy score for the country was at its lowest level since 1975.The V-Dem Democracy Report 2026 gives India an Electoral Democracy Index (EDI) score of 0.38 for 2025, placing it 106th. The report also places India at 105th on its Liberal Democracy Index, with a score of 0.26.

What does V-Dem's Electoral Democracy Index measure?

The Electoral Democracy Index is one of V-Dem's core measures of democracy. According to the institute, it looks beyond the existence of elections and considers whether elections are free, fair and recurring, whether elected officials exercise political power, and whether citizens have universal suffrage.It also considers the political environment around elections, including freedoms of expression, media, association, political parties and candidates.V-Dem's 2026 report is based on its dataset covering 202 countries and territories and draws on assessments from thousands of scholars and country experts. The institute says its dataset contains more than 32 million data points and measures more than 600 attributes of democracy.

India classified as an 'electoral autocracy'

The report classifies India as an electoral autocracy. It says the country has been undergoing what it describes as slow but systematic autocratisation since 2009 and identifies concerns involving freedom of expression, media independence, civil society and the opposition.V-Dem also identifies India as one of four autocratising countries in South and Central Asia, alongside Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan. Sri Lanka is identified as the region's only democratising country in the report.These are V-Dem's assessments, rather than an official classification by the Indian government or an international electoral authority.

India's position across V-Dem's democracy indices

The 2026 report provides scores for several dimensions of democracy. India's rankings are:

• Electoral Democracy Index: 106th, score 0.38
• Liberal Democracy Index: 105th, score 0.26
• Liberal Component Index: 99th, score 0.58
• Egalitarian Component Index: 138th, score 0.41
• Participatory Component Index: 83rd, score 0.54
• Deliberative Component Index: 100th, score 0.57

The report marks India's scores on both the Electoral Democracy Index and Liberal Democracy Index as having declined substantially and significantly over the past decade.

Political debate over India's democracy

Chidambaram's post comes amid a wider political debate between the Congress and the BJP-led government over democratic institutions, elections and the functioning of India's political system.Congress leaders, including Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, have repeatedly raised allegations concerning the electoral process, including his "vote chori" claim. The government and BJP have rejected such political attacks.Chidambaram's latest intervention specifically draws attention to the V-Dem assessment, rather than presenting the index ranking as an independently established fact about the quality of India's democracy.

What the 106th rank means

The ranking should also be read in the context of how V-Dem constructs its index. The EDI is scored on a 0-to-1 scale, with higher scores representing stronger performance according to the index's methodology.V-Dem's report says electoral democracy is central to its broader understanding of democracy, while its Liberal Democracy Index additionally incorporates checks and balances, civil liberties, rule of law and constraints on executive power.The latest figures therefore provide a measure of India's standing under V-Dem's methodology. They do not constitute an official verdict on India's electoral system.