ELECTIONS 2009

Its official, Elections have been announced for the 15th Lok Sabha they will be held in five phases from April 16 to May 13, Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami declared on Monday. The counting of votes will be held on May 16…. The model code of conduct has come into effect immediately. Which means no making any announcements such as free rice, TV, new trains, new projects and transfers of any government officials. As these announcements will influence the mind of voters.
The election will be spread across 28 states and 7 Union Territories and 542 constituencies. This is the first parliamentary election after delimitation exercise, which gives a chance for fresh and young faces. The first phase will cover 124 constituencies and will be held on April 16, second phase will be held on April 23 covering 141 constituencies, third phase will have covering 107 constituencies, similarly fourth and fifth phase will cover 85 and 60 constituencies respectively.
The 14th Lok Sabha term ends on June 1 2009, which technically means you should have a government constituted before 2nd June 2009 as per the constitution of India.
The country will have 8,28, 804 polling booths in 2009 election as against 6,87,402 booths in 2004 parliamentary elections, up 21.5%.
The entire election will be conducted with Photo Electroal card..read photo identity card. If you don't have one do not panic you can take the ration card, driving license, passport but make sure it has your photo, not necessarily the recent photo like the ones Embassies ask for.
The entire election procedure will be conducted through Electronic Voting Machines, for people who don't know what it is the netas will elaborate more on this during campaign. There will be 11 lakh EVMs to cater the electoral needs. The Election commission has a back up of 3.38 lakh EVMs in case any of them fail during the elections.
The 2009 parliamentary elections will have a total of 71.40 crore voters with 4.30 crore of them will be virgin voter, with increase of 41% over 2004 last elections.


There is a constituency located in Gir forests (Gir lions) located in Junagadh district in Gujarat a state in Western India, which has only one voter and the EC has arranged a polling booth for the only citizen…. Which means election commission officials will have to travel with the police security, EVM and polling official overnight and camp in the local school and ask the expect the only citizen to caste his vote….
Likewise, in Chattisgarh state there is a polling station with only two voters and in Arunachal Pradesh 3 polling station with only three voters each and bear in mind this constituency is in midst of a rain forest.
Well, after the party is over its time to foot the bill. The elections will cost more than 10,000 crore rupees which is more than Barrack Obama and other candidates who collectively spent close to 8,000 crore rupees in the presidential elections, according to information available with the US Federal Election Commission.

Preparatory results are out

The election results of five state assemblies have been declared, Congress retained Delhi and Mizoram and a surprise victory in Rajasthan and Bharatiya Janata Party retained Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. These elections were touted as a referendum or the semi-finals prelude to parliamentary elections due in March 2009.
Many observers, media houses, exit polls and psephologists are taken back by the outcome of the results. some channels were even running a ticker with a statement such as surprise victory for congress in Delhi and Rajasthan. As lot of intellectual folks, media guys, spokes person of few national parties both from the ruling and opposition and bureaucrats were expecting a clean sweep for BJP party in four states at least.
Well, the elections happened in midst of a worst terrorist attacks our country has been subjected to and specially MP and Delhi went for an election during this phase. The results show that both the states have given a verdict for the ruling party, Congress in Delhi and BJP in Madhya Pradesh. which clearly shows that voters are not effected by incidents such as Inflation, Church attacks in Orissa, Amarnath Land issue in Kashmir.
The important factor here is we need to look at how election are conducted rather than sitting in our studious and decoding what the voter is thinking or which party he is to vote. The human psyche is very funny thing and trying to unlock it is trying to guess whatz on your girls mind. People vote for certain parties based on their own local political calculation rather than some incidents happening at national level or what the electronic media portrays or the daily newspapers print or the blog we post. The reason is little strange, i know but accept it because the people who religiously go out and vote are not the people who read newspapers or watch our talk shows on news channels but they are common villagers and who are the deciding factors for any election outcomes. Though, some of my folks would argue on Bangalore having 28 urban constituencies after the delimitation and they were the deciding factors, but justgiving an URBAN tag doesn't mean they are Urban. The voters and the candidates were still the same only with a different tag called Urban. That is one of the few reasons certain candidates keep winning the election from a particular constituency ir-respective of what happens at the state or national level. They are fully insulated from things like Inflation, terror attacks etc..
We being in Fourth-estate or F....estate shouldn't go overboard and start predicting elections and later report as surprise victories for certain states and so on. It would be nice if we could stick to our reporting abilities as we have Lok sabha elections due in March 2009 and it would be suicidal to predict the outcomes. So it is wise enough to leave the citizens do their job and let them cast their vote peacefully and please all of you reading this should make an effort to go to the nearest polling booth and cast your votes. Lastly, Lok Sabha election will be a feast to watch out as we are heading towards a phase where the world is willing to listen to our views and comments and take us seriously.