Tamil Nadu, Bengal create history with highest polling

A wind of change may have stirred both West Bengal and Tamil Nadu towards recording highest polling in their electoral history. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: May 13, 2011, 12:29:15 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A wind of change may have stirred both West Bengal and Tamil Nadu towards recording highest polling in their electoral history.

West Bengal polled 84.46% and Tamil Nadu 78.80% in the recently conducted polls. Post poll surveys have predicted rout of CPI(M)-led Left Front in West Bengal and DMK unlikely to retain power.

Women voters appear to have played an important role in West Bengal, where the highest polling had been in 1996 of 82.94%. “Their participation in elections in West Bengal was higher than men,” said Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi.

Much before the elections were announced the commission had implemented an elaborate plan to improve voter participation.

Late last year, a survey in each of the five states to understand their Knowledge, Attitude, Behaviour and Practices of voters was conducted. From beginning of this year, the commission started working on findings of the survey, which cited distance of the polling booths, congestion at the booths and intimidation as reasons for not voting.

A senior commission official said a special officer was appointed in each state to remove the barriers and thousands of new polling booths were set up to facilitating voters.

West Bengal
2011: 84.46%
Last highest: 1996: 82.94%

Tamil Nadu
2011: 78.80%
Last highest: 1967: 76.57%

“For the first time election commission officials distributed voter slips to each voter at their homes and it acted as reminder to them to come and vote,” the official said, pointing out that many voters used to be left out as representatives of contestants used to distribute the slips.

The commission’s efforts not only created a record in two states, voting percentages also increased in the other three states ---- Assam, Kerala and Puducherry. “Voting percentages have increased in seven states in a row,” a commission official said. Voting percentages have increased in Bihar and Jharkhand where polls were held last year.

Another high, indicating abuse of money power, was also reported from Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. In Tamil Nadu, Rs 60.10 crore was seized and Rs 8.35 crore from West Bengal of the total Rs 74.27 crore seized during polls in five states.

Quraishi pointed out that the "inducement of voters through distribution of money and in kind", paid news, voter apathy specially among youth and urban educated and security arrangement in Naxal-hit areas were some of the major challenges that the EC encountered in these elections.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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