India, Jan. 12 -- Sixty-nine candidates elected unopposed!

Just like that. No ballot papers warmed by human fingers. No queues outside schools. No indelible ink on proud index fingers. Democracy, apparently, decided to take the day off.

In the Maharashtra municipal elections, 68 of those unopposed seats quietly slipped into the ruling party's pocket because opposition candidates withdrew. "Withdrew" is such a polite word. But election withdrawals usually come with pressure, persuasion, fear, inducement or a polite knock that is anything but polite.

One wonders what exactly is happening to democracy in India. This sort of thing is common in banana republics and authoritarian regimes; the kind we used to shake our heads at while watching...