The 16th Lok Sabha elections will commence on April 7 and end on May 12. It will be completed in nine phases. These are going to be the largest elections across the world in terms of number of electorates. 850 million are the eligible number of persons who can cast their votes, in which 100 million new voters have been added since the last elections in 2009. Out of total voters, 47.6% are females and 52.4% are male. 23 million voters belong to 18-19 years of age group. Top five states in terms of percentage of voters are – Uttar Pradesh (134.35 million voters), Maharashtra (78.96 million voters), West Bengal (62.47 million voters), Andhra Pradesh (62.38 million voters) and Bihar (62.11 million voters)
To manage such a mammoth sized election, huge number of security personnel, voting machines, voting staff etc are required. Undoubtedly the elections are the biggest in terms of security personnel. Near about 11 million personnel together with two million security personnel have been arranged. For 2014 Lok Sabha elections 14 lakh electronic voting machines will be used and 9.3 lakh polling stations will be set up.
As per the Election Commission Nasim Zaidi taking decision regarding election dates was a big task in itself. To take decision number of other factors like regional festivals, public holidays and other such things have been taken into account.
Not only this but the 2014 Lok Sabha elections will also see some of the historic firsts which are as follow:
Total Spending
Government, political parties and independent candidates are expected to spend Rs 30,000 crore in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. This projected expenditure is all set to compete with the spent by candidates and parties in the 2012 US presidential elections. Their approximate amount was USD seven billion (Rs 42,000 crore).
Participation of glamour
Though celebrities and people from film industry take part in politics but no other Lok Sabha was so glamorous as of this year. AAP, BJP as well as Congress have given party tickets to many film star basically to attract voters. Kirron Kher is the BJP candidate from Chandigarh. Gul Panag is the AAP candidate from Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat. Manoj Tiwari is the BJP candidate from North-east Delhi seat. Nagma is the Congress candidate from Meerut seat. Ravi Kishan Shukla is the Congress candidate from Jaunpur constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Vinod Khanna is the BJP candidate from Gurdaspur. Shatrughan Sinha is the BJP candidate from Patna Sahib. Hema Malini is the BJP candidate from Mathura.
Hi tech propaganda
Influence of technology as well as tech-savvy electorate will exceed in this Lok Sabha elections. Some of the parties have special IT cells. To hoist the awareness of voters, political parties are using technologies (social, mobile, analytics and cloud). Young and tech-savvy electorate are actively participating on different social media platforms. This is for the first time that the lower and upper middle class have become more vocal and influential because of the excessive usage of social media like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
Seeing such a tremendous use of social media, it has been covered by the Election Commission by giving guidelines for campaigns. The political parties have to get the certification for contents before publishing them in websites. All the spending on online campaigns will be a part of advertising and must be show to the Commission when asked.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)
Fight among three political parties at national level is happening for the first time in the history of elections. In addition to old biggies, the Congress and the BJP, the AAP has joined the fight. The party is really giving tough time to other parties because it has attracted a big number of voters especially young. The AAP has also reduces the chances of majority government to a great extent.
Related Information
Parliamentary Election Results
