EC unveils 7-phase LS Poll schedule; Modi rides aspiration while Opposition turns heat with electoral bonds
Election Commission of India (Image credit X ECI)
By Manish Anand
March 16: The Election Commission on Saturday unveiled seven-phase Lok Sabha elections. The polling will begin on April 9, and the counting of the votes will take place on June 4. The Election Commission also announced the poll schedules for four states — Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh.
Announcing the poll schedule, the EC trashed the insinuations about the electronic voting machines (EVMs). The Chief Election Commissioner Rajeev Kumar borrowed a couplet to state that the losers shouldn’t be passing the buck for electoral debacles onto the EVMs. This remark has come amid repeated claims of the Congress that the “EVMs are actually electronic voting manipulations”.
The EC has also said that the election body has a gold standard in holding elections in the country. Kumar said that the electoral roll has been prepared with the full participation of the political parties at the polling booth levels. Kumar also stressed that almost 20 per cent of the electorate consists of the young voters, in the age group of 18-29 years. The gender electorate ratio is also 948, said Kumar.
By the time Kumar set out to unveil the poll dates, the people found a message of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on ‘Viksit Bharat’ delivered in their WhatsApp inboxes. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is anchoring the poll juggernaut on Brand Modi. The BJP is also broadening the electoral net by enlisting allies. The BJP has already stitched an alliance in Andhra Pradesh, and a fresh set of announcements is likely from the saffron camp for Tamil Nadu and Odisha.
The Opposition finds itself at a crossroad at a time when the polls are only a few weeks away. The Indian National Developmental and Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) is almost derailed. The All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC) will be contesting the Lok Sabha elections on its own in West Bengal. The Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, shattered the Opposition unity plank by wearing the saffron robe once more. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has refused to share electoral space in Punjab with the Congress.
But the Opposition has found a rare opportunity to run through the saffron citadel on the basis of the revelations about the electoral bonds. The Opposition has been helped by the stitching together of the claims in a section of the media that there had indeed been a case of “quid pro quo” with the electoral bonds. Incidentally, this has been almost the first occasion where the BJP is seen to be on the defensive.
While a lack of Opposition unity offers the BJP an opportunity to scale up the electoral onslaught in the party’s bastion, the Opposition will be hoping that the Congress makes gains in the southern parts of the country and the regional outfits hold out against the saffron march in their territories.
The BJP is amplifying the slogan of ‘abki baar 400 paar’. The BJP also hopes to make one final harvest of votes from the consecration of the Ram Lalla idol in Ayodhya. The Gyanwapi issue keeps the Hindutva poll plank warm. But the Congress hopes to test the appetite of the electorate by scaling up the entitlement-based promises, raising the promise of Rs one lakh to the youth for gaining apprenticeship if they are unemployed.
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