A total of 59 participants from 31 countries or EMBs as well as representatives from international organisations working on election integrity attended, an ECI statement said.

CHIEF ELECTION Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Thursday said “flawed” surveys or rankings were doing more harm than good for democracy and called on election management bodies to come up with a set of parameters for such surveys.

“I would like to point out that when the EMBs [election management bodies] or election authorities are involved and busy in conducting, and in our case since we do provincial elections also, elections after elections, in the meantime, comes some survey report, kind of, ratings, where one is not sure how much of the inclusive aspects are taken as parameters. Because the parameters themselves are not very well-known or very well-publicised,” said Kumar, speaking from Bengaluru to an international conference hosted virtually by the Election Commission of India.