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In less than a month India will embark on the world’s biggest democratic election. There will be a record 968mn eligible voters. And, for reasons almost unique to India, they won’t be in a hurry.
The vote, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking re-election to a third term, will be held in seven phases over more than six weeks, starting on April 19 and ending on June 1.
It is so long that by the time results are out on June 4, India will be deep in its pre-monsoon hot season, when temperatures regularly climb into the 40Cs. Mass rallies at that point are a hazardous proposition.
There are political ramifications too from this seemingly logistical matter. Opposition parties say a long campaign puts them at a disadvantage against Modi, who is driving hard to increase his parliamentary majority in his third term.
Does India really need all that time to vote? This is a country with some of the world’s best IT minds, who pioneered the so-called “India Stack” — an online digital ecosystem where payments by phone number or QR code are instantaneous, and faster than in most developed countries.
Couldn’t “Digital India” get things done in a day or two?
The short answer, analysts and officials say, is no. Ample time is needed to deploy election observers and — in a country with a history of election-related violence — security forces. Some past elections were marred by instances of “booth capturing”, where gunmen made off with ballot boxes.
“In my day, I did it in five and a half phases,” said Navin Chawla, who served as India’s chief election commissioner in the 2009 election, which ran from April 16 to May 13. “I couldn’t do it in any less time.”
While India’s election-related violence has been declining, the risk remains in some states and regional pockets, analysts say. It means a few days are needed to move police and paramilitary forces between phases.
“If the country needed to vote on one day, the requirement on security forces would be enormous and the government couldn’t provide this,” said Sanjay Kumar, professor at the Centre for Study of Developing Societies.
India’s sheer size and diverse geography, ranging from Indian Ocean archipelagoes to Himalayan peaks, are daunting too. S Jaishankar, foreign minister, last week spoke of the challenges of “navigating through urban sprawls, remote villages, and challenging geographical terrains”, as well as reaching senior citizens and differently abled voters.
At a recent press conference, the Election Commission of India said it was intent on reaching out to everyone, including 18mn first-time voters, 197mn voters in their 20s, and 48,000 transgender people qualified to vote.
Taking weeks to vote in India is nothing new. The first post-independence election in 1951-52 required “sometimes horrendously difficult” challenges, with bridges built to cross rivers and naval vessels deployed to take electoral rolls to booths on small islands, according to Ramachandra Guha’s book India After Gandhi. The vote took a record four months.
Indian elections became shorter after that. In 1980, when Indira Gandhi returned to power after a three-year hiatus, voting took just four days.
More recently, however, Indian elections have been getting longer: the 2019 vote was held in seven phases and took 39 days. This year’s will take 44.
A protracted vote will aid Modi, his opponents claim. The opposition Indian National Congress, which this week cried foul after its bank accounts were frozen in a tax dispute, says a longer electoral timetable will suit the incumbent, whose Bharatiya Janata party is better funded.
“We have to stretch our campaign for at least two weeks more,” says Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary for communications. “That costs money.”
Phasing elections over several weeks, say opposition supporters, will allow Modi more time to campaign in big states where the BJP faces a serious challenge from opposition parties, such as in Maharashtra.
“Campaigning in multiple phases over a month and a half gives the BJP and the prime minister, its main face, more time to travel,” contends Nikhil Alva, a media professional who has worked with the Congress party in the past.
Such criticisms are certain to intensify as the campaign season kicks off. But they are unlikely to sway India’s massive electoral machine: its five-yearly “festival of democracy” has kicked off, and it will be taking its time.
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