There is so much to say about the experiences of past 2 months that I spent in India during Parliamentary elections there. 714 million voters in India, world’s biggest democracy, went to polls to elect 543 Members of Parliament out of 8070 candidates at over 828,000 polling stations. Its a huge exercise in this huge country. The one month long election process went through in a very systematic manner and a new government is now in place.
Voting is not compulsory in India. Little less than 60% of the eligible voters voted.
I am refraining here from commenting on how voters are or can be influenced/induced and what practices parties/candidates adopt – not to forget certain tainted candidates.
What I want to highlight here is the manner in which this immense and complicated exercise is conducted by the Election Commission of India.
When you think of millions of things that could go wrong in such a process and they didn’t, it is credit to the officials who conduct these elections. There is a lot of planning that goes into smooth execution of the whole electoral process – thousands of civil servants, police and paramilitary forces are deployed all across the country. India is not an easy country to conduct such a process- there are difficult terrains; a lot of people are illiterate; there are cultural, religious and linguistic differences and in some far flung areas there are not even proper approach roads. To include all these people and to make sure that their opinion is counted is what democracy is all about.
Here is a news story that salutes Indian democracy. A polling booth was set up and 4 officers deputed just for one voter to cast his vote in a remote area.
And there is this interseting video also that I found:
