The Hindu Business Line : Eighth wonder

INDIA'S election marathon easily qualifies to be declared the eighth wonder of the world (assuming there has been no surprise addition)! I looked for it in the Web site of the Guinness Book of Records, but in vain.

That, in my eyes, straightaway robbed the publication of much of its credibility.

In scale, magnitude, numbers and complexity, no other operation in the whole wide world comes anywhere near India's general election. Just look at these astounding figures for the election of 543 members of the 14th Lok Sabha: 675 million voters (exceeding the population of any other country except China and thrice the size of the electorate of the US, the second largest democracy); 700,121 polling centres (the highest in the world in Ladakh); five million officials for manning them; two million security personnel; one million electronic voting machines (EVMs); 5,435 contesting candidates; at the last count, 712 political parties of which seven are national, 49 are regional and 656 registered with, but unrecognised by, the Election Commission (EC).

Can there be anything more challenging or gargantuan than this? And yet, the EC manages to despatch in time men, machines and materials up the steep mountains, down the cavernous valleys, along desert sands, undeterred by inaccessible and forbidding terrain, braving the dangers of jungles, in scorching heat, in pouring rain, by every conceivable means of transport, including bullock carts, elephants and camels, and get all of them back safely to counting centres to declare the results on the specified date.

During the period of a month or so of phased polling, the three Election Commissioners have to keep the whole mammoth undertaking on the rails by exercising unceasing vigil to keep the election free, fair and clean, handing down their rulings on the daily barrage of doubts and complaints, and disciplining the errant.

All this takes place so smoothly and seemingly with such effortless ease as not to affect the even tenor of life. In fact, the general run of the population is hardly aware that anything so momentous is taking place.

The time is not far off, though, when elections will be neither so arduous nor so costly. Just as EVMs have replaced ballot boxes, wireless connectivity with every home will replace the present primitive ballyhoo.

Candidates will reach out to voters through instant messaging or real time interactive sessions. Likewise, voters will swipe their own personal ID cards and record their votes from home or the nearest internet kiosk. Great, is it not?

B. S. Raghavan

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