Undertones of Parliamentary Election Schedule | Amal Mandal

Abstract

It is disconcerting that the role, particularly the election schedule, of the Election Commission of India (ECI) is courting controversies and insinuations. The allegation is that the ECI has been devising election schedule at the bidding of the ruling executive and the schedule offers tactical time and campaigning opportunities to the ruling regimen.

The peek into the 2019 and 2024 parliamentary election schedules—with their longish span, overlong interval between phases and allocation of election phases to the states, including slicing of constituencies—vindicates a few subtle designs. i) The shorter election format was for the states where the election outcomes were almost predictable—either for or against the ruling party. ii), Staggered phases in the battleground states where sustained campaigning was supposed to be imperative. iii) And inclusion of supposedly pushover parliamentary constituencies in earlier phases of multi-module election format. Incognito tactical campaigning opportunities to the dominant ruling party are writ large in the schedules.  

It is disconcerting that the role of the Election Commission of India (ECI), particularly its recent election schedules, is courting controversies and criticism. The latest illustration being the decoupling of Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections after 15 years of synchronisation[1] on the spacious grounds of festival, flood and security and reshuffling the proclaimed schedule for Haryana assembly polls to 5th October 2024, a date (coincidentally!) when the 18th instilment of Kisan Samman Nidhi has been disbursed @Rs 2000 to each registered farmer. [2]

The adverse academic assertions, inter alia, include; the ECI is fending to the diktats of the ruling executive and functioning at the behest of the government, and the poll panel has metamorphosed into ‘biased referee,’ ‘political player,’ or a “servile commission.”[3] However, the alleged stooping can be contextualized with the political trajectory. It is all but explicit that the nature and inclination of the executive is one determinant of the autonomous and unfettered role of the ECI; the more stable and dominant the executive is, the more is subjugation of the ECI. [4]

This article peeks exclusively at the schedule for the 2019 and 2024 parliamentary elections and the delineation is based on the nitty-gritty of as well as the anecdotal references to the scheme of the election schedules for the major states. The exposition evinces that while the objective markers were evidently indeterminate, the longish schedules coupled with overlong interval between phases have had subtle correlations with state-specific electoral configurations and the discreet design offered biding time wherever required and facilitated extensive campaign opportunity for the top brass of the dominant ruling party.

The Single Circuit

The single circuit layout was for the states where the electoral outcomes were almost predictable—either for or against the ruling dispensation. It, thus, substantiates the subtle electoral calibration. The one day format was for all South Indian states (barring Karnataka) and a host of North and North-western states like Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Gujarat, Goa, Delhi, regardless of their variegated demography, geography and topography.

In South Indian states, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) did not have a substantial electoral foothold; it contested 119 parliamentary seats but could win 21 seats from five Southern states during the 2014 elections and 29 seats in 2019, mostly from Karnataka alone.

Electoral permutation could be one clinching cause for two-phase elections in Karnataka. The relatively stronger presence of the BJP—17 parliamentary seats in 2014 and 25 in 2019—accentuates the inference that more campaigning efforts were crucial in Karnataka, unlike other Southern states.

Disparate electoral orientation is evident in the North and North-western states where the BJP used to have unilateral sway, as in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Having had the domineering electoral hold, sustained electoral campaigning was probably considered unwarranted.

Punjab was the odd state among the Northern States in terms of electoral configuration. In Punjab, the BJP had a strong political presence but a weak electoral feat. The party won 3 parliamentary seats in 1998, 4 in 2004, 1 each in 1999 and 2009 and 2 each in 2014 and 2019. However, after the collapse of its alliance with SAD, the BJP found its electoral ascendency tough.

However, the absorbing facet was the assignment of phases among the Northern states. Barring the consistent 1st phase for Uttarakhand, later cycles were assigned to other states; 3rd phase for Gujarat and Goa, 6th phase for Haryana; and 7th phase for Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. The subsequent cycles are strategically advantageous in the sense that the ongoing electioneering elsewhere exerts indirect influence also on other electorates. 

Battleground States

Staggered phases were ordained for the battleground states where sustained campaigning was thought to be expedient. For the BJP, increasing seat share, particularly away from the ‘Hindi heartland’, was obviously crucial for retaining or swelling the parliamentary majority. Thus, persistent campaigning and mobilisation efforts through a longer time span might have been electorally compelling in Odisha, Bihar, and elsewhere.

For achieving a pan-Indian stature and for offsetting possible electoral losses in its traditional Hindi heartland, the BJP has since the 2000s pursued a concerted policy that can be regarded as the "Look East” electoral plank, whereby it strives to spread and consolidate its electoral footprints by challenging regionally dominant parties, with allies wherever possible. 

The four-phase election schedule for Odisha (with 21 parliamentary seats) seems baffling considering it’s not a large geographical spread and least propensity to election-related violence. Concurrent assembly election in 2024 cannot be the significant determinant for longer spell in Odisha. Andhra Pradesh with 28 more assembly seats than Odisha did have a single day election. The plausible causation may be the political ascendency of the BJP. The electoral feat of the BJP in Odisha had improved steadily; from I seat in 2014 to a 12 seat in 2019, more notably without forging any formal alliance with regional parties.

Equally confounding is the seven-phase election in Bihar. The state accounts for fewer parliamentary seats than, say, Maharashtra (just one short of Tamil Nadu) and its violent and disruptive era of the 1990s has already been a passé. Like Odisha, Bihar is another battleground state for the BJP. The party won 5 parliamentary seats in 2004, 12 in 2009, 23 in 2014 and 17 in 2019, contesting in league with diverse regional parties at different times. 

A multiphase election in West Bengal is ineluctable considering its records of violent history. The state, another cog in the “Look East” frame, seems the political Armageddon where the BJP and TMC are contesting at full tilt. For years the BJP has been trying to make a significant foray and win a substantial number, avowedly more than one-half of the total 42 parliamentary seats. And the top brasses of the BJP traverse the state time after time for campaign activities, and pull out all the stops, more than once in a single constituency. 

Enigmatic Patterns

For the states with a multi-module election format, the seat allocation in phases followed a pattern where relatively less problematic or supposedly pushover constituencies for the ruling BJP were included in initial phases in many instances. In West Bengal, as a case in point, the election kicked off with the seats being held by the BJP (in the North Bengal region) and gradually extended to areas where the hold of BJP was weaker.

No clarity or rational justification is available as to the basic parameters considered for devising the schedule. It appears that geography, demography, topography and security considerations—either exclusively or synchronously—were not always the decisive benchmarks. Otherwise, the bigger states like Tamil Nadu (with 5th largest parliamentary seats) and Gujarat (with 7th largest seats) would not have a single-day election. Moreover, the geography and number of seats were not weighted equally. Otherwise, more than two phases for Rajasthan, four phases for Madhya Pradesh and five phases for Maharashtra could have been apposite.  

Security issues were apparently not the determining factor in preparing the schedules. Problematic or violence-prone states were mainly Chhattisgarh, Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir, and, to some extent, West Bengal and Kerala. The uniform three-phase schedule, that too with 7 parliamentary seats in one phase, for Chhattisgarh, a state infested with Maoist insurgencies and with relatively difficult topography, could have been more staggered.

Overlong Interval

The average interval between every two phases of the schedules was enigmatically longish—6 days in 2019 and 7 days in 2024—minimum 5 and maximal 11 days. Was such a downtime unavoidable? One bizarre interlude of 11 days between the 2nd and 3rd phases of the 2024 schedule would attest to both the underlying political intent and the feasibility of pruning the schedule. 

The third phase of the 2024 schedule included 94 parliamentary seats across 12 states. [5] Absorbingly, 84 of those parliamentary seats were being held by the ruling NDA, and the BJP alone held 72 seats. Such substantial sway of the ruling dispensation might have necessitated more campaigning and mobilisation initiatives for retaining the decisive hold, as any bumbling at this phase was to dent the overall electoral feat. 

The schedules were subtly designed to offer tactical campaigning opportunity to the ruling dispensation in the states where the electoral stakes were high and the outcome was equivocal. Surely, such an opportunity was equally available to all other contesting parties, but when its campaign orbited around the ‘charismatic leader’, the BJP needed more time than other parties.

For the BJP, the elections revolved around and hinged mostly on the singular vote magnet—it was the vote of the Prime Minister Modi, by the Modi, and for the Modi, literally. Accordingly, Modi alone addressed 125 public rallies across the country during 2019 and 206 rallies and road-shows and 80 interviews in 2024.

Easy Squeezing

The schedules could have been more compact or abridged without compromising security requirements, particularly by squeezing the inexplicably longer interval as well as by incorporating an additional number of constituencies from the adjacent areas in each phase.

The schedules followed one broad spatial direction: progression from North to South (West Bengal, Rajasthan), from West to East (Odisha, Uttar Pradesh), from East to West (Assam, Maharashtra, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh), from the South to the North region (Chhattisgarh, Karnataka), etc. Despite a few interruptions somewhere, gradual geographical coverage was the general and logical scheme. 

Contentious is the ECI’s contention that it takes “at least six days” for interstate movement and redeployment of security forces between two election phases. The ECI itself had ordained less than six day interval in many instances. And this is not atypical, as the forces are usually deployed well ahead of the stipulated date of election. And given the geographical proximity of constituencies in almost all the phases, the movement of security (and other) personnel would not generally require more than 1-2 days.

Accordingly, conducting elections in the next phase within 3–4 days was not absolutely infeasible from a logistical and managerial standpoint. Thus, a truncated interval would have helped in squeezing the extending span of the schedule [6]—with an average 4-day interval at each phase, maximum 28 days—and obviated the apprehension that the lingering interval was designed to offer the star campaigner(s) a cut across the country for mobilisation of the electorate at a personal level.

At the same time, the number of parliamentary seats earmarked for the first three phases was minuscule. The first cycle of 2024 elections started with 1 seat in Chhattisgarh, 4 seats each in Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, and 5 seats each in Maharashtra. In West Bengal, the first three phases included total 10 seats, the fewest being 2 in the 1st phase of 2019. When the ECI could conduct elections in one go for 39 seats in Tamil Nadu, 26 seats in Gujarat, or 25 seats in Andhra Pradesh, one cannot fathom the justification for such a microscopic number of seats in states with multistage formats. Obviously, the accretion of more seats in the initial phases could have reduced the total number of phases or offloaded the number of seats in subsequent stages.

Equally inexplicable was the total number of seats slotted for the latter half of the schedules. For the last three phases, the average number of seats at each stage was only 58, even 49 seats for the 5th stage of 2024. Without elaboration on the underlying rationale from the ECI, one is led to assume that the schedules had the incognito motive of stretching it to the maximum, or that the poll panel had proceeded from the conclusion to the premise!

The Archetypes

Few archetypes can be recapitulated. It appears that geography, demography, topography and security considerations were not always the decisive benchmarks. Otherwise, the bigger states like Tamil Nadu and Gujarat would not have a single-day format.

The shortest format was for the states where the election outcomes were almost predictable—either for or against the ruling party.

The staggered phases were for those battleground states where sustained campaigning was supposed to be indispensable.

For the states with a multi-module election format, the seat allocation in phases followed a design where relatively less problematic seats were included in earlier phases.

The schedules afforded tactical campaigning opportunity to the ruling dispensation; that is, more time for mobilisation attempts in the states/constituencies where the electoral stakes were high and the outcome was equivocal.

The schedules could have been more compact or abridged, particularly by squeezing the longer interval as well as by incorporating an additional number of seats from the adjacent constituencies in each phase.

Notes and References

[1] The Chief Election Commissioner contended, “We can handle two elections at a time,” particularly in the face of huge “requirement of forces in Jammu and Kashmir.”

[2] While the BJP Chief of Haryana urged adjustment of election date on the ground of holidays before and after the scheduled date, the All India Bishnoi Mahasabha emphasised the impending traditional festival (The Hindu, September 1, 2024, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/haryana/election-commission-postponed-haryana-assembly-elections-in-people’s-interest-says-bjp-leader-anil-vij/article68592767.ece.). Such revision of assembly election date is not, however, unprecedented; reordered in Punjab, 2022, Manipur, 2022, Rajasthan, 2023 and Uttar Pradesh, 2012. 

[3] “Autonomy of ECI, its powers, free & fair elections, are all dead. RIP”(Suhas Palshikar); the ECI “is no longer an umpire, but a political player”(Yogendra Yadav) (The Wire (2024): “A New Low, No Longer an Umpire’: Political Scientists Decry Election Commission.” May 11. https://thewire.in/politics/a-new-low-no-longer-an-umpire-political-scientists-decry-election-commission. It is the ‘mouthpiece of the government’ (Katju M (2023):“The Election Commission—autonomy in the crosshairs”, The Hindu, August 30. The ECI is “bending to the diktats of the political executive” in the announcement of election schedule and selectively overlooking violations of election codes (Kumar Sanjay (2021): “Election Commission’s Partisan and Controversial Functioning,” Citizens’ Commission on Elections, Are Elections in India Free and Fair? Vol. II, New Delhi.)

[4] The influence and partisan pressures on the ECI have historically been greater whenever the executives commanded an overwhelming majority in parliament (Mandal Amal (2024): “ECI’s Credibility,” The Statesman, September 7). 

[5] Bigger states included Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where the BJP held sway.

[6] The seven-phase elections spanning 39 days in 2019 and 44 days in 2024 (with 68 and 76 days of campaigning period respectively) are inordinately longer. Scheduling (and conducting) elections is surely a very difficult and complex process. However, the ECI’s dependence on the Home Ministry for the security forces is one significant determinant of election stretch. “We did not get as much force...as we felt we required. Indeed, it was about half of what we had asked for”(Chawla Navin (2019): Every Vote Counts, Noida: HarperCollins). “Sometimes logistics and availability of security forces require that elections are held in several phases” (Quraishi SY (2014): An Undocumented Wonder - The Making of the Great Indian Election, New Delhi: Rupa Publications). With adequate security forces, the span can be “reduced to 33-35 days”(Quraishi (2023): India’s Experiment With Democracy, New Delhi: HarperCollins). P Chidambaram claimed that the national elections can be held within one week, with maximum three phases (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZgoSUdfLbo).

(Author: Amal Mandal formerly taught political science at Tufanganj Mahavidyalaya, Cooch Behar, West Bengal (amalcob[at]rediffmail.com))