It has been three weeks of Indian democracy's proverbial "hour" of reckoning: General Elections 2004. The four-phased polls stretching over an incredible 20 odd days are finally over. In the next 48 hours or so, the beans will be spilled and the country, nay the world that has now a great interest in India's fortune, will come to know the result. The television psephologists who accelerated our pulses with their exit polls, will be out of job, at least for now.

Thanks to the EVMs in every booth, counting would be quick and easy, just at the press of a button, enormously shortening the time to find out the results. While technical advancement has made counting a brief and hassle-free affair, polling by contrast has been prolonged beyond the limit of tolerance due to the lack of proper management. The general elections of 1999 were held in five phases over a period of one month. This year, it is cold comfort to see a marginal improvement.

Despite the fact that India is a vast and highly populated country, difficult to access in some parts due to geographical barriers like mountains, forests and water bodies, elections have been regularly taking place since 1952. With time, the Election Commission should have developed the expertise to conduct not only free and fair, but faster elections as well, at least relatively. Also, instead of taking multiple states partially in one phase, a complete state should have been finished in one phase.

These elections also threw up several other points of concern. To begin with, polling around the country was modest, if not low, between 50 to 55 per cent. Much of this could be attributed to the hot climate prevailing in most parts of the country especially during the first two phases. April is indeed the cruellest month for voters. By contrast, the last general elections were held in September-October, allowing a "feel good" weather for the electorate. Yet, this time it was encouraging to find many celebrities including cine artistes coming out to vote in right earnest, in spite of the heat.

Sadly, the EC doled out a real dampener to the electorate. A substantial number of bona fide citizens, almost in every state and every phase, found their names missing from the voters' list. To prepare a proper voters' list is the first duty of an EC. Deletion of bona fide names reflects poorly on the working of this statutory body. On the other hand, we are beset with the perennial problem of Bangladeshi infiltrators patronised by the "secular" parties as vote banks. How come their names make it to the voters' list? I don't claim that these acts of omissions and commission are by design; but this makes up a case for discrimination against the sincere electorate.

While the EC neglected its homework, it indulged in passing strictures that made headlines. For instance, it initially banned campaigning through television advertisement. Then it brought out a proposal for regulating such ads, which was overruled by the Supreme Court. It went to the extent of proscribing films on Doordarshan of those stars who are in the electoral fray, viz., Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, Dara Singh, Jaya Prada, Hema Malini, Moushumi Chatterjee etc. This was taking things to a ludicrous extent, because first, such things don't influence electoral decision, second, a viewer in Ahmedabad or Patna is not a voter in Rampur or Bikaner. Third, what is the effectiveness of such bans where all private channels having better rankings than Doordarshan are free to telecast their films? In their specific constituencies, there was nothing to stop filmstars from exploiting their stardom for electoral benefits.

The EC even tried to curb anything suggestive of election symbols, albeit selectively. A public park in Nagpur has a fountain shaped as lotus, which was to be covered as per the orders of the EC. One wonders what the EC would do with people's hands (Congress symbol), bicycles (SP), elephants (BSP) or lanterns (RJD)!

Violence was another discouraging feature of the elections. In Jammu and Kashmir, understandably, it was because of terrorist fear, with pre-poll attacks being suffered by both the PDP and the National Conference. Both Mehbooba Mufti and Farooq Abdullah had providential escapes during campaigning. Naxalite violence surfaced as a major menace during the first phase in parts of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand. Needless to stress, Naxalite violence has become a major menace for the democratic process in the country. The tacit intellectual support of the Left notwithstanding, Naxalism has now become a Frankenstein monster. In rural West Bengal, a PWG-kind of Naxalism is openly challenging the Left Front as the oppressor and the betrayer. Twice in the recent past, people in Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's posh Assembly constituency in Kolkata discovered "election boycott" posters pasted on every wall. The next incumbent government in office must evolve a meaningful solution to this problem.

In this regard, the pollings in Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland have provided the bright spots. Arunachal Pradesh recorded a significant 50 per cent voting despite bandh calls by the All Arunachal Pradesh Students' Union. Nagaland pollings proved exemplary as voting touched 80 per cent and were generally peaceful. Vajpayee's efforts to engage the Northeast into the mainstream of India and convince the people to shun violence are bearing fruits. In his speech at Guwahati recently, Vajpayee issued a caveat against violence. He said, dialogue, and not violence, was the solution and nor would proponents of violence be successful in their design.

Alas, if the heartland had proved as exemplary as the Northeast this time! In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh violence was clearly engineered by the bahubalis or the musclemen patronised by the state governments or connived at by the local administration. One glaring example of this was civil aviation minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy's constituency Chapra. In Lalooland, the local administration is a mere puppet of the RJD government. To counter Rudy's videographic evidence of RJD violence, Laloo tried to blame him of rigging. That an EC team has visited the constituency with a view to ascertain if the polls need to be countermanded, shows the gravity of the situation. This reflects the sad reality of the "Republic of Bihar" where a suave, gentle and well-educated figure like Rudy has to suffer Laloo's disgusting hooliganism. One wonders what would happen to India if Laloo's wish of becoming Prime Minister comes true!

While the Patna High Court had issued an order to disqualify all the jailbirds fighting the elections, the Supreme Court put a stay on that order saying the elections were at an advanced stage and the order could not be evenly implemented. It's high time this long overdue measure became a reality.

Exit polls remained another exciting and piquant feature of these polls. The EC consistently opposed the concept of exit polls and opinion polls. Clearly, it felt, conducting polls and declaring results were its domain and anybody else's simulating it, an infringement. Notwithstanding the attorney general Soli Sorabjee's expert opinion that banning opinion or exit polls would be a violation of the right to freedom of expression, the EC was still hoping for a presidential ordinance to that effect even after the third phase of the elections was over.

Initially, the Congress had opposed the exit polls saying that these would propel the indecisive electorate towards the winning combination. This shows the Congress was clearly doubtful of its chances. However, the exit polls had the opposite effect on the Congress morale, even though it was illusory and comical. This is no place to analyse the merits and demerits of the exit polls. But I wish to remind that the exit polls and the unprincipled alliances to keep a "communal" BJP out of power by the "secularists" are roughly of the same vintage as manifested in the summer of 1996. Now both seem to have developed an interface, probably by the secret prodding of the "powers that be."

The exit polls conducted by several media houses in partnership with market survey organisations threw up results which are at wide variance with one another. Even though, objectively, the Congress and its alliance partners were finishing a poor second to the BJP and the NDA alliance, still, in every such exit poll, the "secularists" did not lose any opportunity to consistently undermine NDA prospects. The hilarious riot taking place among the leaders of the Opposition camp to become Prime Minister proves how untrustworthy the Congress' allies are.

The NIFTY at the stock market got the jitters and had a free fall with the market rebounding only after the third phase where the NDA was seen to be getting a clear majority. For once, this clearly demonstrated to what extent the health of the market is dependent on the continuance of the NDA government in office. It will be presumptuous to claim that the business community in this country as a whole is beholden to the Vajpayee government. But if the Congress were to return to power in a pyrrhic victory using the Left Front as its crutches, it would be a catastrophe for commerce and industry which are now booming as a result of Vajpayee's visionary governance.

Even Sonia Gandhi in her Kalchini speech had castigated the Left, saying its policies have laid waste the flourishing industries of West Bengal. How can then some Congress leaders claim that the party is on its way to form the next government at the Centre with an alliance with the Left? Let alone the NDA's unshakeable confidence in getting a majority on its own, or Sonia Gandhi making a virtue of compulsion by saying she won't poach on BJP-allies, the infidelity of the Congress' real and perceived allies stare in its face, puncturing all its daydreams about forming the next government. After Sharad Pawar and Mulayam Singh Yadav, M. Karunanidhi and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee have come out against the choice of Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister. This implies an end of Congress' circus alliance even before the results have been declared.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, May 11, 2004