World’s largest democracy
The results of the elections to the 15th Lok Sabha were announced on 16 May, following a month-long phased polling exercise. Within two hours of the counting, it became clear that the Congress party was galloping ahead, and that the alliance it leads, the UPA, with 262 MPs, would have little trouble garnering 272 seats – the magic number to stake claim to form the government. As drums were beaten and laddoos eaten, Himal began to gather some behind-the-scenes numbers of the largest democratic exercise in the world.
• Up for grab: 543 contested seats, of which 499 were newly delimited constituencies and 131 were reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
• The largest constituency was Unnao, Uttar Pradesh and the smallest constituency was Lakshadweep
• 714 million voters were registered, up from 671 million in the 2004 elections; 24 percent were under 35 years of age, and 48 percent were women
• 828,804 polling centres, up from 687,402 in 2004
• 12,901 new polling stations were set up for villages with less than 300 voters
• Three officials were deployed for the lone voter living in the Gir forest
• 1,368,430 electronic voting machines (EVMs) were used; prior to the introduction of EVMs, in 2004,
up to 8000 tonnes of paper
were used to print ballots
• 64 candidates could be supported by a single EVM; manual ballots were
used if the number of candidates exceeded this
• Hikkim, Himachal Pradesh, at 15,000 feet above sea level, was the highest polling station in the world
• 60,000 post-election counting staff members were required, in addition to over two million security personnel and seven million polling personnel on duty; elephants and camels were also pressed into service
• Except Assam, Nagaland and Jammu & Kashmir, all states used photo electorate rolls, accounting for 82 percent of the electorate
Gender
• Of the 8070 candidates from 1055 parties in the fray, only 556
were women
• One in every 12 women (eight percent) won the election, while only one in every 15 men (6.5 percent) won
• The number of women MPs was 46 out of 543, up only one from the 14th Lok Sabha elections; the winning women included 12 from Uttar Pradesh, six each from West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, four each from Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, three each from Rajasthan and Bihar, two each from Assam and Haryana, and one from Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Maharashtra and Meghalaya
Independents
• 3150 candidates (46 percent) ran as independents, the highest percentage in 13 years; only nine won.
Caste
• More Brahmin and fewer Dalit candidates were nominated by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), led by Mayawati: 29 Hindu upper castes, 20 Other Backward Castes and 14 Muslims
• In Maharashtra, 15 Muslim candidates were nominated by the mainstream parties, and about a dozen by smaller parties and independents; none of the Muslim candidates won any of the 48 seats up for grabs in the state.
Education
• More than 43.9 percent of candidates are graduates or above
Assets
• According to candidate affidavits, 16 percent of candidates declared assets worth more than INR 10,000,000, compared to nine percent in 2004; 60 percent of Congress candidates were crorepatis, with average assets amounting to seven crore: 42 percent in the BJP (average assets: two crore), and 30 percent in the BSP (average assets: three crore); four candidates declared assets worth more than INR 500 crore
• 223 (less than three percent) claimed to have no assets whatsoever
• Altogether, there are now 300 crorepatis in the new Lok Sabha
Campaign
• One week before election close, the BJP's Narendra Modi had addressed 200 rallies, spanning some 68,000 km. L K Advani and the Congress party's general-secretary, Rahul Gandhi, had held 110 rallies each; Rahul Gandhi managed to traverse over 87,000 km in the process
• The Congress party spent more than INR 200 crore on Sonia and Rahul Gandhi's air travel by helicopter
Criminals
• 1114 candidates (15 percent, or one in every six candidates) faced criminal charges, down from 24 percent in 2004
• 150 newly elected MPs have criminal cases pending against them, 73 of whom have serious criminal records – up from 128 MPs with criminal cases, 55 of whom faced serious charges
in 2004
• The BJP has the highest number of MPs with criminal cases at 42, of which 17 are serious; this is closely followed by the Congress, with 41 MPs with criminal cases, of which 12 are serious
Summary
• The final voter turnout was 58.4 percent, with 414,913,023 ballots
cast; this compared to 58.1 percent voter turnout and 389,948,330 ballots cast in 2004
• Andhra Pradesh saw its highest-ever turnout, at 73 percent, largely attributed to popular film star Chiranjeevi's political debut
• The Kannur constituency of Kerala was the first declared result, where the Congress won
• The Congress won 206 seats, up from 145 in 2004; the BJP won 116 seats, down from 138 in 2004; the BSP won 21 seats up from 19 in 2004
• After Jawaharlal Nehru in 1962 and Indira Gandhi in 1971, Manmohan Singh is the third Indian prime minister to return after a full five-year term
• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will also be the only two-time
prime minister never to have faced a direct election