Lessons from 2019

Election schedule needs shortening

Till recently, election fatigue was a term associated with the United Kingdom, where the electorate faced two general elections and one momentous referendum on Brexit in the space of just two years, apart from sundry local elections. In 2019, it is fair to say that India has reached that stage in a little over a month, thanks to a seven-phase election schedule. The diminishing enthusiasm is evident in the progressive dip in voter turnout: 69.5 and 69.4 in phases one and two, respectively, to 68.4 per cent in phase 3; 65.5 per cent in phase 4; 65 per cent in phase 5 and 63 per cent in phase 6. This makes for a rough turnout average of 66 per cent — comparable to the turnout in the record-setting nine-phase election of 2014. But considering that the registered electorate has swelled from 814.5 million voters in 2014 to nearly 900 million, and the issues at stake are no less consequential, it was reasonable to have expected a larger turnout. It is possible that voter ennui will change in the last phase, on May 19, but the contrast with the excitement of 2014 is palpable. The big takeaway from the 2019 elections, then, is the importance of shortening the schedule. 

To be sure, the increasingly extended election schedules are a result of logistics that come with an exponentially expanding electorate: Electoral rules decree a polling station within 2 km of every habitation, posing unique challenges in terms of mobilising security and administrative personnel, especially in jungle or mountainous areas. But some of the schedules are hard to justify: Why, for instance, should West Bengal and Bihar, with 42 and 40 seats, respectively, have seven phases, the same as Uttar Pradesh with 80 seats? This extended schedule also enables political parties to exploit a loophole in the model code of conduct. The code stipulates a no-campaign or silent period 48 hours before the vote to give voters some downtime to consider their choices. This includes proscribing political advertisements and press conferences. This stricture, however, does not cover social media, which is far more ubiquitous and insidious in its influence. A 24X7 information environment, therefore, enables politicians to stay in campaign mode for the duration, a situation that disproportionately benefits the larger national parties. The code proscribes campaigners elsewhere from addressing voters of poll-bound constituencies but that acts as a minor check.

As a result, voters all over India have been bombarded non-stop with election rhetoric well before April 11, the day the elections started. Leaders from all parties have not hesitated to take full advantage of this loophole to raise the level of obnoxious rhetoric about their opposition in one part of the country just ahead of voting in another part. This coarsening of the public discourse is, perhaps, the most urgent lesson the Election Commission (EC) needs to take on board. The EC’s somewhat mild response to transgressions of the code has only encouraged this trend. It is a pity that the Supreme Court had to remind the EC of the powers that it always had to rein in their worst instincts. That perhaps prompted the EC to take the unprecedented decision to invoke its special powers under Article 324 of the Constitution to prematurely end the election campaign in West Bengal ahead of schedule following violence that erupted during campaigning on Tuesday. The need for such unambiguous no-tolerance policy from the EC remains the most compelling lesson of the 2019 elections.