Facts and figures for India’s general election

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Voting in the 2014 election begins on April 7. More than 814 million people — a number larger than the population of Europe — will be eligible to vote in the world’s biggest democratic exercise

Uttar Pradesh has the most eligible voters (134 million); Sikkim the lowest (about 362,000). Male voters constitute 52.4 percent of the electorate but women voters outnumber men in eight regions — Puducherry, Kerala, Manipur, Mizoram, Daman & Diu, Meghalaya, Goa and Arunachal Pradesh

About 23 million eligible voters have been enrolled in the 18 to 19 age group, nearly 3 percent of India’s voters.

Of India’s 814.5 million eligible voters, 28,314 identify themselves as transgender and their gender is listed as “other”. There are 11,844 non-resident Indians registered to vote in the election this year.

Since introducing photo voter ID cards and electoral rolls in 2009, 98 percent of India’s eligible voters have the former, 96 percent have the latter.

Electronic voting machine security includes: transported under armed escort and stored in strong rooms, with a double lock system and guarded 24×7 by armed police, and CCTV coverage. Also, parties/candidates allowed to keep a watch on them

Nearly 10 million officials (including police for security) will be deployed.

Uttar Pradesh has the most Lok Sabha seats (80) while the states of Nagaland, Sikkim, Mizoram and the union territories have one seat each.

A candidate can spend up to 7 million rupees ($116,350) for his election campaign in Delhi and all states except Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Sikkim. For these states and other union territories, the limit is 5.4 million rupees ($90,000).

A candidate for the Lok Sabha makes a deposit of 25,000 rupees ($415) at the time of filing the nomination. If the candidate fails to get a sixth of the total valid votes polled, this amount is forfeited. Nearly 85 percent of the candidates lost their security deposit in the 2009 election.

In the 15th Lok Sabha, around 78 percent of the members have a graduate, post-graduate degree or a doctorate.

Malkajgiri in Andhra Pradesh is the biggest Indian constituency in terms of voters with around 2.95 million electors; Lakshadweep is the smallest with 47,972 voters. In Lower Dibang Valley district of Arunachal Pradesh, Hukani polling station has 22 registered voters. Officials travel 22 km on foot to get there.

In the 2009 election, 363 political parties took part. The Bahujan Samaj Party contested the maximum number of seats (500 out of 543), followed by the Congress (440) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (433).

The last general election had a voter turnout of over 58 percent. Nagaland (89.99 percent) had the highest turnout while Jammu & Kashmir (39.68 percent) saw the lowest.

Namo Narain of the Congress party beat his BJP rival by 317 votes in Rajasthan’s Tonk Sawai Madhopur constituency — the smallest margin of victory in the 2009 election

The indelible election ink that is applied while electors cast their votes is manufactured by Mysore Paints & Varnish Limited, a Karnataka government undertaking.

MORE ON THE ELECTION The new Lok Sabha is expected to be constituted by June 1 with 543 lawmakers chosen from across India. Of these, 131 seats are reserved for candidates from the country’s scheduled castes and tribes. Two other lawmakers can be appointed to the Lok Sabha by the president to ensure the representation of India’s tiny Anglo-Indian community, taking the total number of lawmakers to 545. A political party needs to secure at least 272 seats to form the government.

Schedule

April 7 (six constituencies) – Assam, Tripura April 9 (seven constituencies) – Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland April 10 (92 constituencies) – Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar islands, Chandigarh, Lakshadweep, Delhi April 12 (five constituencies) – Assam, Sikkim, Tripura April 17 (122 constituencies) – Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal April 24 (117 constituencies) – Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Puducherry April 30 (89 constituencies) – Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu May 7 (64 constituencies) – Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal May 12 (41 constituencies) – Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal

http://blogs.reuters.com/india/2014/04/03/facts-and-figures-for-the-2014-general-election/ Thought this deserve a separate thread. Whatever our differences/affiliations should applaud our democracy, I doubt any country can beat us in election process :isalute: ps: Only improvement I can see/hope/wish is some time in future we can able to complete election process within a week.

[Precambrian]

Thanks! Yeah but 1 week is too less a time to mobilize and deploy security forces. The slightest case of inflammation can jeopardise the whole elections. In this case even if zomething goes wrong, it can quickly be quarantined and prevented from affecting other regions.

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In 1989, Congress candidate Konathala Ramakrishna from Anakapalli in Andhara Pradesh and in 1998, Som Marandi of BJP in Rajmahal, Bihar won by 9 votes

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The largest proportion of women candidates in a constituency in 2009: 75% in Tura, Meghalaya

[Crookbond]

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Anil Basu's victory at Arambagh, WB had the largest margin CPM or any party had seen: over 5.9 lakh votes

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Until 2004, Outer Delhi had the highest number of voters polled (15 lakh). After the 2008 delimitation, that mantle went to Malkajgiri, AP (12 lakh)

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Most candidates Nalgonda, AP fielded a record-breaking 480 candidates in the 1996 elections, with Belgaum, KA a close second in the same year.

Only two elections had women candidates exclusively: Karur, TN (1967) and Panskura, WB (1977). Only 8 elections have had more women than men.

Arif Ahmed Shaikh Jafhar (NBNP) contested the 2009 elections from Dhhule, MH at age 99, making him the oldest candidate ever in India.

The Doordarshi Party, founded by Baba Jai Gurudev in 1980, has the record of contesting 716 seats across 3 years without a single victory

The INC is among the most successful parties, being one of the few parties that has won more than 50% of the seats it has ever contested in

[adi B]

very good thread :two_thumbs_up:

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"Designed by Electronics Corporation of India Ltd. and Bharat Electronics Ltd, Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were first used in Kerala. The EVM was first used in India in 1982 in a by-election at the Parur assembly constituency of Kerala and in only 50 polling stations An EVM can record a maximum number of 3,840 votes which far exceeds the number of voters (usually less than 1,400) assigned to a polling station. The 2004 general elections were conducted totally by using 10.75 lakh (1.075 million) EVMs in the country. The highest number of candidates that an electronic voting machine can support is 64. If the number exceeds this, then manual ballot is used!""

" Atal Bihari Vajpayee is the only politician who has won from six different constituencies: Balrampur - 1957, 1967, Gwalior - 1971, New Delhi - 1977, 1980, Vidisha- 1991, Gandhinagar - 1996, Lucknow - 1991, 1996, 1998 !" 4 different states - UP, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi

Country's 5 biggest and 5 smallest constituencies according to area: Biggest constituencies: Barmer (Rajasthan) : 71601.24 sq-km Ladakh (J&K) : 173266.37 sq-km Arunachal (East) (AP): 39749.64 sq-km Kuchh (Gujarat) : 41644.55 sq-km Arunachal(West) AP: 40572.29 sq-km Smallest constituencies: Mumbai South: 13.73 sq-km Mumbai South-central: 18.31 sq-km Delhi sadar: 28.09 sq-km Chandni chowk (Delhi): 10.59 sq-km Kolkata north west 13.23 sq-km

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The highest voting percentage in any general elections has been 62.2 per cent in 1957

The lowest voting percentage was in 1967 when only 33 per cent cast their vote

Indira Gandhi was the only PM to lose a Lok Sabha election while still in office

CPIM is the only party which has stuck to the same symbol since Independence

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Polling station with least no of electors: Only ONE voter in Polling station No. - 29;(Dharampur) in Miao Assembly segment of Arunachal East parliamentary constituency

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Cannot guarantee 100% accuracy..i try to chk mulitple sources..still who knows.

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This time, a record number of 1000 unrecognized parties are registered with the election commission of India. Of them, more than 90 are based in Tamil Nadu and nearly 20 in Kerala. Karnataka has about 25 registered parties while Andhra Pradesh has more than 40.

candidate securing the highest number of votes would be declared elected even if the number of electors going for the None of the Above (NOTA) option surpassed the votes polled by the electoral contestants.

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Inderjith Gupta,elected 11 times, who was elected to the second Lok Sabha in a bypoll in 1960 from West Bengal as a Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate, continued to be an MP till his death in 2001, with the exception of the sixth Lok Sabha period between 1977 and 1980.

Former prime minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee and late union minister P.M. Sayeed served the lower house for 10 terms

Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader George Fernandes, the Congress' Giridhar Gamang, Khagapati Pradhani and late leader Madhavrao Scindia had nine terms in the Lok Sabha, the statistics show

[coffee_rules]

:two_thumbs_up:@ thread.

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Since 1989, no Lok Sabha seat has been won uncontested. Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir, was the last

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Some stats are repeated..still

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The party that won the Faridabad seat has always gone on to win the Lok Sabha elections