Vote of goodwill
India’s election juggernaut was set in motion on Wednesday with the Election Commission announcing the voting schedule staggered over nine days at 9.3 lakh polling centres between April 7 and May 12 and the counting to be held on May 16. Electronic voting will enable tabulation and declaration of results the same day, barring the odd glitches, so that the 16th Lok Sabha is constituted the following fortnight and be in session by June. With 81.4 crore voters on the rolls as of January – bigger than all of Europe’s population – this will be the largest electoral exercise the world has seen. Along with electronic voting machines, which technologically advanced countries like USA are vary of, a feature to interest those who marvel how India manages its boisterous democracy, is the NOTA (None of the above) option added to the list of candidates. The NOTA, which enables voters to reject all candidates in the list, was tried in the assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Mizoram last year. This feature adds an element of uncertainty as absence from voting has in some constituencies in the past.
Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath said regional factors such as weather – monsoon in some places, blazing summer heat in others – and distractions like school vacations and harvesting patterns apart from security considerations influenced the choice of polling dates across 35 states and union territories. But the EC’s consideration of local conditions to minimise inconvenience to voters, it would appear, has slipped in the case of Goa where polling for the state’s two Lok Sabha seats is set for April 17, a Maundy Thursday – on the eve of Good Friday – when even nominal Christians feel obliged to participate in church services. When the entire week is to be observed as a period of fasting and prayer, Christians could have done without the acrimonious distractions of an election. It matters to Goa where a quarter of the population is Christian and from among whom will inevitably be candidates and election activists. It is interesting that all but Manipur among the northeast states which count a sizeable proportion of Christians, have no polling during the Holy Week. Kerala and Andaman & Nicobar, finish polling the week before. If it is noticed how Assam votes with a gap from April 12 to 24 to avoid the Holy week, it raises questions whether inputs on Goa’s local sensitivities were sought or if those who should have provided inputs to the EC planners did so earnestly enough.
Already, by a quaint coincidence the state budget was presented on the day the EC announced the election and brought into force the Model Code of Conduct prohibiting governments of the day from announcing or furthering policies that can be seen as an inducement to voters. Inevitably a state budget enunciates proposals the government deems beneficial to the people, even if some parts may not meet with absolute acclaim. Also a Governor’s address to herald the budget session is meant to be a policy declaration for the next year. If the model code of conduct is to ensure a ruling dispensation gains no unfair advantage over opposition parties at an election, the government has managed to get across essential announcements by dint of administrative necessity. Those will be discussed further in the assembly and gain publicity as is natural. Under the circumstances, moving the polling day outside the Holy Week may not be too much to ask of the EC as a gesture of goodwill and fairness to Goans.
