Lok Sabha Elections of 2019 is currently being held in seven phases, starting with the First phase on 11 April and the seventh phase is scheduled on 19 May, to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha and to elect our next Prime Minister of the country. The counting of votes and the results of the world’s biggest Democratic Election will be declared on 23rd May. Till now, Elections on 484 seats have been covered in six phases.

Talking about the ongoing Elections, there are about 900 million eligible voters for this Election, all 543 elected MPs (Member of Parliament) will be elected from single-member constituencies using the first- past the post system. The process is conducted by the Election Commission of India which is an autonomous body. It has set up 1 million polling stations in the country, which is 10 percent higher than the last election that took place in 2014. To conduct this mammoth exercise ECI announced dates for the 2019 Elections on March 10 and with this, the Model Code of Conduct was applied in the whole country. It means that all the candidates and Political Parties have to follow certain rules and guidelines. If there is any violation of the MCC, necessary actions can be taken by the Election Commission.
This year’s Election is seeing nearly 2000 parties and over 8000 candidates contesting for the 543 Lok Sabha seats. This Election is considered to be the world’s most expensive Election, the polling exercise is costing an unprecedented 50 thousand crores which is a 40% jump from 2014 polls. The government officials are traveling by foot, road, special trains and helicopters to conduct the Elections. The polling booths should not be more than 2 kilometers away so that citizens do not face any inconvenience to reach the Booths.

Currently, Elections are being conducted from North to South and East to West. As mentioned above, there are 90 crore eligible voters out of 130 crore population in India. The voters turnout in the first phase that took place on 11th April was 69.50%, the second phase took place on 18th April saw 69.44% voting, the third phase which took place on 23rd April saw 68.40 %, the fourth phase took place on 29th April which saw 65.51%, the fifth phase took place on 6th May saw 63.5% and phase sixth saw around 62.82%  voters respectively.

Along with the Elections, many issues aroused simultaneously. There were cases of violation of the Model Code of Conduct, parties mocking each other, giving inappropriate speeches which are hurtful for other parties, religious groups, especially minorities. The police and CRPF trying to control the situation and maintain the law and order in the states. The election is also witnessing cases of bogus voting at some places, giving and taking of bribes, which is also the violation of the law and order. The elections are facing controversial cases between the candidates of different parties using unparliamentary and unjustifiable language.

During the ongoing elections, there were some villages of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Gujarat, where the citizens refused to go and cast their vote because they are facing issues like water supply, improper roads, etc.

On the other side of the cube, this election is seeing the enthusiasm of first-time voters, who are participating in the 2019 Elections. Also, More than 65 Representatives from 20 Election Management Bodies across the World are witnessing the 17th Lok Sabha Elections as part of Election Commission’s Election Visitors’ Programme.

There are around 10 crore humongous young voters or called as the ‘youth’ of the nation, and the netas cannot take a chance to ignore this group. They are presently more aware, educated and are witnessing the circumstances that the country is going through. But the pain is, this future youth of the country is facing a lot of issues like unemployment, quality education or higher education and a good standard of living. There are very less number of representatives in the Election race who will represent their interests at the center.
At the same time, the parties are so busy mocking each other that they have not been discussing the future with the future (youth) of India

We should not Ignore the fact that while a candidate is filling his or her candidature form, the most important point ‘Education Qualification’ which should/ must be asked is nowhere mentioned and somewhere this is the reason for the problems arising. If followed properly in an election, there will be fewer chances of bad languages being used by the candidates, and free and fair elections will be held in the country.

Sources: Election Commission Of India, Google.

-Sagufta Sheikh