Elections in India

Since independence, elections in India have evolved a long way, but all along elections have been a significant cultural aspect of independent India. In 2004, Indian elections covered an electorate larger than 670 million people—over twice that of the next largest, the European Parliament elections—and declared expenditure has trebled since 1989 to almost $300 million, using more than 1 million electronic voting machines. In 2009, the elections c... more

Since independence, elections in India have evolved a long way, but all along elections have been a significant cultural aspect of independent India. In 2004, Indian elections covered an electorate larger than 670 million people—over twice that of the next largest, the European Parliament elections—and declared expenditure has trebled since 1989 to almost $300 million, using more than 1 million electronic voting machines. In 2009, the elections covered an even larger electorate of 714 million (larger than both EU and US elections combined). The size of the huge electorate mandates that elections be conducted in a number of phases (there were four phases in 2004 General Elections and five phases in 2009). It involves a number of step-by-step processes from announcement of election dates by the Election Commission of India, which brings into force the 'model code of conduct' for the political parties, to the announcement of results and submission of the list of successful candidates to... less