Indian Elections

In the recent elections in the North East, one election official dejectedly told the media how the politicians undermine the people's faith in democracy for 5 years and the Election Commission does its best to restore it, if only for the one day on which polling happens.

This detailed and interesting article by Mr. Gopalaswami, Chief Election Commissioner of India about the recent election in UP is inspiring in that it restored my faith in the ability of our Government organisations to do their job exceptionally well.

Since bogus voting can be largely prevented only if the identity of the voters is correctly established, a massive attempt was made to issue Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC). Between December 2006 and the second week of April, 2007, a total of 2.69 crore EPICs were issued covering 22% of the electorate throughout the state, raising the coverage to an average of 80% in the state. As many as 85% voters who turned up to vote produced the EPIC as identity while the rest produced other identity documents like the ration card, driving licence, NREGS job cards, student IDs etc.

In order to prevent misuse of ration cards, student identity cards etc. a strict warning was issued to those who were empowered to issue these cards. It is common knowledge that the ration card is more often than not kept with the ration shop owner (quota-dar in local parlance) rather than with the householder in whose name the card is issued. Since the quota-dar can part with the cards to some local toughie who can either use this as identity for bogus voters or simply hoard it to prevent the genuine voters from voting for lack of an identity card, warning was given to all quota-dars to distribute the cards to the actual beneficiaries and after giving a grace period of 24 hours, the ration shops were raided to ensure that everybody complied with the direction.

The CEC ends his piece with a call for introspection about the need for so much security even in this day and age.

As the curtain is being drawn on the UP 2007 elections, while the overwhelming feeling I have is one of satisfaction about the free, fair and peaceful poll, it is not unmixed with a tinge of sadness that even 57 years after we became a republic and 55 years after we had the first general election in independent India, a free and fair poll has meant massive deployment of central security forces. To my mind, this calls for a deep retrospection on the part of the political parties, the civil society groups, the Election Commission and other stakeholders to think of urgent corrective steps so that in the none-too-distant future we can see a day when a free and fair election can be held with no policemen around and with citizen volunteers managing the polling stations.

We need more parts of the government doing their job at least properly, if not exceptionally well like the Election Commission. Kudos and thanks to these competent officials.