For voters who exercised their franchise in the ongoing Assembly polls and the candidates who contested in Goa, it is a long wait for the result. It will be nearly a month when the political process will end. Also, most of the government work is delayed due to the absence of political leadership. Polling in Uttar Pradesh is being held in seven phases from February 10 to March 7. Manipur went to the polls in two phases on February 28 and March 5 while Uttarakhand and Goa had a single round of voting on February 14. Punjab too went for a one-day poll and all the results are to be announced on March 10, which is a very long time for the States which have already voted.
Do the long staggered polls have an impact on voting behaviour, thanks to informal exit polls, social media chatter and whisper campaigns for or against parties? Political scientist Sanjay Kumar of the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies had mentioned to the media that there is no evidence to prove this necessarily happens. He believed that a staggered poll could possibly add to the victory margin of a party which is riding a wave of support and widely expected to win by a large margin. But in a close contest like it is expected in Goa and few other States of the five which went to poll or under the process (like in Uttar Pradesh on March 7), a phased election can hardly influence the final results because the voters “do not know who is going to win anyway”.
Experts in psephology also believe that phased elections put parties and candidates whose fates are decided in the early stages at a disadvantage over others who get more time to campaign. Also, then parties and candidates who are contesting later rounds do have to spend more money and energy running a longer campaigns. Hence, longer campaigns possibly favour nobody and the fatigue and to some extent even interest in participating in the democracy festival starts to lose its steam.
The country does face issues when a massive population exercises their franchise and each voter in this country has to be respected and given his or her “rights”. It is no mean task but it can be managed with the up-gradation in logistics and technology, be it better roads and infrastructure. The ease of voting and ease of results can also be pushed ahead with the growth in logistics and infrastructure. Issues which slow down the process in India’s marathon elections actually shine a light on one of its most glaring deficiencies, its poorly paid, badly equipped, ill trained and understaffed police. Unless the police force is beefed up considerably with speedy mobility and its standards improve, voters will have to live with “elections without end”.
Yes, the Lok Sabha elections in India are always required to be conducted in multiple phases keeping in mind the size and voting population in the country and precisely due to that and the number of phases may differ. However, with just five States, it could have been done faster. Many things may still go wrong and the Election Commission needs to account for those and plan in advance. Every election year comes with a unique set of challenges. This time it is the fear of COVID but Bihar elections also went through the process at the peak of the virus spread.
Agreed that maintaining law and order is an extremely challenging task during elections and deployment of police personnel is also a key issue that commentators often ignore but yet there can be a scope to reduce this lengthy process. The Election Commission has to work in tandem with the police forces well in advance. If the forces reckon that they will be able to work more effectively over a period of multiple days, then the Election Commission has to oblige. After all, it is they who have to move from one place to another in a short span of time but the roads and vehicles are much better today than what they were in earlier times. The benefits of infrastructure should be utilised in all sectors.
As far as resources are concerned, it is not as if increment in the number of phases lead to a tremendous increase in the resources utilised. Every constituency has to work with a limited budget, and the allocation is done keeping all things in mind. What is important is that smart use of technology and infrastructure which are built to reduce time and this could certainly save the long wait and agony of voters and the candidates.
