[dropcap]E[/dropcap]nsuring high turnout in urban areas to securing safety of voters in conflict ravaged zones- conducting elections in the world’s largest democracy is a formidable task .
The Discovery Channel in an exclusive one-hour programme, ‘Revealed: World’s Biggest Election’, will portray challenges in managing 2014 General election in immensely populated metropolises to the smallest villages in Ladakh where there are less than 30 eligible voters.
Over 830 million voters; spread across 9 phases and four months, the 2014 General Election has been the longest poll in India’s history. The Election Commission had to deal with 28 states and seven union territories spread over more than three million square kilometres.“This unique attempt will present viewers the most comprehensive account of organising and managing the gigantic Indian general elections. The programme will cover all the aspects of the elections from logistics, communication, security, polling, counting uptil the result declaration,” says Rahul Johri, a senior executive from Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific.
India went to polls for the first time in the year 1951 when majority of its citizens could not read or write. Whereas the latest round of general elections saw the participation of a large number of first-time voters who made up almost 10 per cent of the electorate reflecting the peak of electoral demographic dividend.
Elections in the world’s largest democracy is, expectedly, a play of gigantic figures. In 2014 polls the Election Commission was tasked with identifying eligible voters out of the country’s 1.2 billion strong population, while managing 8748 candidates from over 1600 political parties, and deploying over a million police and paramilitary forces.
Defying all odds, elections has helped in injecting democratic principles and ethos into the capillaries of lanes and bylanes of India’s body politik. Taking a look into what powered these monumental tasks promises to be quite enlightening.
PTI
