Let’s Talk About: Inside India’s 2024 Lok Sabha elections | Promo

#loksabhaelection2024

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India’s grand electoral spectacle, with over a billion people voting in scorching heat, has been marked by high-pitched campaigns, big poll promises, controversies, and coalitions. But there have also been instances of voter suppression, the use of communal and divisive rhetoric, and intimidation for withdrawal of nominations from hot seats.

In this special episode of Let’s Talk About, host Abhinandan Sekhri speaks to SY Quraishi, former chief election commissioner of India, about the election commission’s powers and limitations, misconduct during polls, delays in the release of voter data, EVMs and the underbelly of Indian polls.

Quraishi, who has also authored India’s Experiment With Democracy and An Undocumented Wonder: The Great Indian Election, threw light on the scale of the elections and said that while the ECI only has the moral authority to caution and reprimand under the Model Code of Conduct, it has “immense powers” under Article 324 of the constitution.

On the incidents of the BJP’s Hyderabad contestant Madhavi Latha taking law in her own hands at a polling booth, the saffron party’s communal ad on X, and candidates allegedly being forced to withdraw nominations for the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, Quraishi said the ECI could file FIRs. He also explained that the poll body appoints one officer in each district to monitor OTT and that “every political ad needs to be cleared by the ECI’s media certification and monitoring committee”.

The former bureaucrat spoke about the chief commissioner’s accountability, procedure of collating voter data, poll logistics, accusations of EVM manipulation, and the evolution of the election voting machine through the years. “In Form 17A at polling booths, officers record the sequence of voters. The data is available in real time with the presiding officer… Form 17C gives a total figure for the whole day. The complete data should be available within 24 hours.”

Tune in.

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