Lok Sabha Elections India 2014 - Part 1

 The dates of the Lok Sabha elections have been declared. Elections would be held from 7th April 2014 to 12th May 2013 and the results would be declared by 16th May 2014. According to the Election Commission of India, the current electoral strength of India is 81.45 cores.

There would be total 543 seats. Out of these the major contributors would be:-

• Andhra Pradesh - 42
• Bihar - 40
• Maharashtra - 48
• Tamilnadu - 39
• Uttar Pradesh - 80
• West Bengal - 42

 Hence we can clearly see that 6 states out of 28 states (Not including Telangana yet) and 7 union territories, are contributing a total of 291seats which is 53.6% of the total electoral seats. No doubt the move to break Andhra Pradesh clearly had ulterior motives.

NDA headed by BJP and UPA headed by Congress would be the two major coalitions that are expected in 2014. However we have to see what is the percentage of coalition in each of these groups. Meaning how much autonomy would the leader of each of these coalitions enjoy. That would eventually determine the quality of governance in the coming 5 years.

A brief look at the 2009 Lok Sabha election trends :-

• According to the 2009 election results, the voter turnout was 58.19
• 52% voters were male and 47% voters were female
• Total 8070 (93% male and 6.9% female)candidates contested for 543 seats. Which means approximately 15 candidates contested for 1 seat

The data mentioned above is from the website of the Election Commission of India. The ratios are going to remain nearly the same, however there is going to be an increase of about 12 crore voters who would attain the age of 18 for this Lok Sabha elections.

Based on the current scenario of Indian politics, society and economy, the following factors are of primary importance for deciding whom to vote:-

1. We need change definitely. The consistent scams and persistent corruption that has grown within the system needs to be uprooted. India is the largest producer of vegetables in the world and yet the prices of vegetables is so high. This is because of corruption (hoarding and black marketing) under the patronage of politicians and weak supply chain infrastructures. Each scam is of thousands of crores. Which means few people enjoy thousand of crores worth stolen wealth. And this wealth comes from the taxes we pay as Indian citizens. It is the hard earned money of each and every taxpayer 
2. We do not need a "khichdi" government. Which means a govt. formed by a political alliance of many small regional parties. This type of alliance would not enable the governmental machinery to take decisions freely for the country's development. So in this election we need to vote for the national parties rather than regional parties if we want good governance
3. New parties that have come into the forefront are now too new to take care of the governance in a mature manner. Moreover they have not yet placed themselves firmly on the ground. Hence they would fall prey to existing political parties who have exploited the system so far

Watch this space, more interesting data, statistics and analysis to come.....