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Weather will count for more in the election than ever before

In the months of monsoon blast and early whiff of winter, Indian democracy will unpack its fire and fury as the country braces itself for yet another unscheduled election, the third in four years, to constitute the 13th Lok Sabha. This is for the first time in nearly five decades of the country's electoral history that a general election is being held in the month of September, a time viewed by the Election Commission as the climatically difficult period of the year. A majority of the past 12 elections have been held between February and June.

Always a logistical nightmare, the Indian general election this time round will grapple with the monsoon fury which peaks in September, while natural disasters like the cyclone await the southern and western parts of the country. The rains start in the southern tip of the country in early June and then march north. The heavy showers can trigger flash floods over vast areas, making campaigning and balloting difficult, holds the BJP, which also apprehends cyclones along the southern coastline.

The Indian Meteorological Department reinforces this apprehension by forecasting a good rainfall from the southwest monsoon in September and October. Twentynine of the 35 areas which the IMD has divided the country into have already received excess to normal rain and heavy showers are expected to lash parts of the country till October. As many as 229 districts in the country were savaged by floods in September 1998. These included 48 in Uttar Pradesh, 28 in Bihar, 27 in Karnataka, nine in Madhya Pradesh and eight in Orissa.

Besides, cyclones wrought havoc in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in September-October. More than 2,500 people died in floods last year, and at least 1,200 perished in a devastating cyclone in Western India. Bihar BJP president Nand Kishore Yadav says voters will face severe problems as the monsoon and floods will peak around September and October. Almost 25 seats will be affected in the floods during the election, he points out.

In Madhya Pradesh, where seasonal rains continue till early October, more than 17.5 million voters may be deprived of their franchise in the election. The met department maintains that on an average, the state witnesses 22 cm of rainfall in the last week of September. Of about 70,000 villages spread over 61 districts, roughly 17,500 are inaccessible during the rainy season. The hurdles in the coming poll can be gauged by the fact that several poll teams had to walk on foot to reach as many as 743 polling centres for conducting the state assembly poll last year. Besides, 2,000 poll teams had to use bullock carts and 53 used boats to approach the polling centres.

According to state election office sources, a total of 44.8 million voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the state. Almost 80 per cent of the voters dwell in the rural areas. As the onset of the monsoon had been delayed this year, the met office predicts that the rains will continue till September-end. While the mainstream political parties were greatly exercised over the timing of the poll, for the Election Commission, the moot point was: whether it was prudent to send more than 615 million people to elections in the energy-sapping heat of the summer, with the mercury hovering at a scalding 45 degrees Celsius, or the floods of the monsoon.

In the given circumstances and considering all factors, the best possible time would be September and the first week of October, Chief Election Commissioner Manohar Singh Gill held, and conceded that this was the first time ever that the EC had been confronted with the task of having to hold general election in the climatically most difficult period of the year.

"There is no ideal time for holding a poll between between May and October, we had to do the best we could," Dr Gill said, adding that September and the first week of October were the least possible inconvenient option in the most difficult six-month period given to the panel to conduct elections.

More vital, according to the CEC, is the fact that elections would be a logistical nightmare in the world's biggest democracy, with more voters than the combined population of the US and Russia and hundreds and thousands of officials and security personnel. The Indian election is the mother of all elections. Six hundred million people -- it's not a joke, it worries and frightens us, said the CEC, with a tinge of exasperation.

This will also be the first time that the country will witness a general poll staggered over 31 days in a five-phase schedule, which became imperative due to the extraordinary situation thrown up by the Kargil conflict, deployment of paramilitary troops in sensitive border states and inclement weather in parts of the country. In fact, the full-blown hostilities in Kargil had even spawned an unprecedented possibility of the election being postponed.

The only occasion when elections were postponed in India's half-a-century of democracy was during the Emergency when civil liberties were given a short shrift and the Lok Sabha's term extended by Parliament. About the logistical problems, the CEC talked about an update of voter rolls which would imply that there would be an additional 15 million voters since the last general election in February 1998. A contingent of five million staff, assisted by several hundred thousand police and paramilitary personnel in attendance, would be needed to man nearly 900,000 polling stations across the country.

Congress spokesman Ajit Jogi says the five-month gap between the election and the dissolution of the 12th Lok Sabha is nothing new. Even in 1979, the Lower House was dissolved on August 24 after Charan Singh resigned and the last phase of the poll was completed on January 3. Anyway, it is going to be an extraordinarily long wait for the election results because of the staggered polling, even as Indian democracy merrily keeps its date with a string of unscheduled polls.

UNI

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