Dear MEL Topic Readers,
India election 2019: Voting to begin in
world's largest election
As of April 2019, the population of India is approximately
1,365 million, the world’s second largest only after China. India is a federation
with a parliamentary system and the single largest democratic state. 543 members
of the House of the People, the lower house, are elected by direct vote every
five years, and choose the Prime Minister of India.
In this year’s national election, as many as
900 million people are eligible to vote at one million polling stations across
the subcontinent. If the same turnout occurs as the last election in 2014, about 600
millions of votes are going to be cast and counted, which, as a whole, is 10 times
as large as the UK’s or five times as large as Japan’s population. The voting will
be held in seven stages in 39 days starting from April 11th till May
19th and counted on May 23rd. Because of the size of the
ballots, the electric voting system has been used since 1999. Once cast, the voter is
applied an indelible ink on a fingernail that remains for at least two days to prevent
double-voting.
The election system and implementation both seem
to work properly to administer this massive election. But what about the
campaigns? While over 80 million new voters are added since the last election
five years ago, who are 18 to 22 years old and looking for the future, about
half of the workforce work in agriculture, which produces only 17-18% of the nation’s
GDP. It means that farmers and agricultural labors are not wealthy and looking
for immediate solutions for more today’s problems, such as government subsidies
and social welfare rather than longer-term issues like education and
productivity. Thus, while the election system has been well established and
democratically implemented, the election campaigns seem to be focusing on
buying voters’ minds, just like other still-developing nations.
Enjoy reading and learn what this single
largest event of democracy is about.
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