An innovation that changed the poll landscape (- Navin Chawla, former Chief Election Commissioner of India) ¬Vulnerability mapping ensured accountability, gave visibility to the Election Commission’s work, and sent a no-nonsense message to trouble makers we found that a “vulnerable” voter had to walk through areas of intimidation to cast a vote. We then created auxiliary polling stations and parked them in at the vulnerable pockets themselves. Now there was no need to walk through hostile territory. Several hundred new auxiliary polling stations proved to be a game-changer which is why I termed the 2007 U.P. election a “watershed.” The impact was clearly visible on poll day. The ECI observers did a marvellous job. They tracked every vulnerable location. As the electoral administration had identified the potential trouble makers by name and forewarned them there against violence, there was no threat or intimidation on the poll day. The U.P. elections, for the first time in years, were violence-free. Vidya Subrahmaniam, writing in Frontline on May 19, 2007, summed it up thus: “In Lucknow, where I start my journey, local journalists breathlessly talk about an election that has not been this free and fair in decades. They eulogise the Election Commission of India for making this possible and speak of Dalits in the remotest villages trooping out to cast their votes — in many cases for the first time since Independence. ‘This is a miracle,’ they say.”¬
Posted on: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:32:59 +0000
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