Poll positions

The election schedule reflects India's problem areas

Lasting over 39 days and covering seven phases between April 11 and May 19, the elections to the 17th Lok Sabha and four Assemblies mark the longest since electronic voting machines (EVMs) were introduced in 1999. This is also the longest duration since newly independent India’s first polls in 1951-52, which lasted four months, from October 25 to February 21. The obvious question is why this critical democratic process should take quite so long when India has in the past managed general elections in a much shorter time frame, that too using cumbersome ballot papers. Part of the answer, of