Elections Update

The great Indian election

http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/05/stories/2009030554850800.htm

In what is by some distance the world’s biggest and most complex democratic exercise, India with 714 million eligible voters will go to the polls in five phases, between April 16 and May 13, to elect 543 members to the 15th Lok Sabha. Despite an increase of 43 million voters and 141,402 polling stations over 2004 (when 687,402 polling stations were set up), the Election Commission of India wisely decided against stretching the election schedule beyond a month. The trick is to strike a delicate balance between taking care of security and logistics, which dictate a spread-out schedule, and avoiding an unduly long process, which would make electioneering even more punishing than it is during an Indian summer. What will be mind-boggling to outsiders is the army of 4.1 million civil staff members and 2.1 million security personnel who will be deployed for the exercise. The complexity is enhanced by the fact that the phasing and sequencing of the elections must factor in inter-State boundaries to guard against what the ECI describes as “cross-border influences” in the peaceful conduct of the polls. To the Commission’s credit, everything was worked out to the last detail in consultation with Home Ministry officials, and Chief Secretaries, Directors General of Police, and Chief Electoral Officers of all States. As educational institutions would need to double as polling stations, the first phase of the election had necessarily to wait until the second week of April, when public examinations would conclude. The absolute outer limit, of course, was May 28 — when a new Lok Sabha had to be in place under the Constitution… [more]

Lok Sabha election schedule announced

(http://www.eci.gov.in/press/current/Phase_Map.pdf)