India is conducting its 17th Lok Sabha General Elections. Indian General Elections are
considered to be the largest democratic exercise in the world. But this democratic
exercise is not conducted without any problems. Like all other previous elections one
main problem that has been reported is the malfunctioning of the Electronic Voting
Machines (EVM’s). Various parts of the nation has reported failures in the EVM’s. But
the credibility of these news and the sources for these news are not sure.
During the first phase of the General Election, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader
Mayawati has reported that votes casted for the symbol ‘elephant’ was going for
Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) symbol ‘lotus’. Also complains have been reported to the
Election Commission that Dalits from village areas were not allowed to vote and
threatened by party members. Similar issues have been reported by Samajwadi party
leader Akhilesh Yadav and also UDF members from Kerala. They have forcefully
stopped the polling process.
The Election commission officials in those states have reported the EVM’s to be
completely alright. Another incident that happened in the state of Kerala was that a man
was arrested for announcing false claims regarding the malfunctioning of EVM’s. Being
the largest democratic exercise, people and leaders have both failed the system
equally. While as of now the polling turn outs to be good, it is very sad to realize that
people vote for political parties and not for political leaders. Because of this people are
raising false allegations against different political parties. Even after repeated assurance
from the duty officials, people have created issues in the polling booth areas. While it
maybe true for some states, starting false claims can affect the true meaning of
democratic adult franchise.
There has been many issues of malfunctioning created by different political parties
earlier to gain more votes during elections. And it’s not a new trend in the Indian politics.
But when even common people along with political parties start to manipulate polling
and election results it shows the weakness of the democracy. The personal likes and
dislikes for different political parties dominates Indian democracy than citizens rights
and duties. The various manifestos put forward by political parties become just for
name sake. People have to be taught to exercise their rights and duties properly.
The saddest fact of the Indian democracy is that, it is the educated middle class
who is helping the political parties to create malfunctioning in the EVM’s as well as
raising false claims on EVM’s. While the non-educated seems to vote on the basis of
party manifesto. It is another question on how much different parties fulfill their
manifesto. But the extent to which the educated class doesn’t know how to
exercise their duties is surprising. Thus it’s high time to stop teaching people to
just vote and start voting by considering political leaders and party manifestations.