Former CEC SY Quraishi unveils 'India Elects - 2014'

NEW DELHI: ElectionsinIndia.com – India’s premier portal disseminating election-related insights and analysis – has released its book titled 'India Elects - 2014' – a comparative analysis of general elections results of India: 2009-2014. The book was unveiled by Dr. S. Y. Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India, in New Delhi on Tuesday. The book carries a Foreword by renowned psephologist Dr Prannoy Roy, Executive Chairperson, NDTV Ltd, and a Preface by Dr R K Thukral, Director, Datanet India Pvt Ltd.
While the Foreword mentions India has the world’s most advanced electronic voting system, it laments that there has been little fundamental research on its elections – until now, which is why India Elects – 2014 is so important. Replete with in-depth data, the book analyses the results of the general elections held across India between 7 April and 12 May 2014 - the longest elections in India’s history and the world’s biggest voting event with more than 814 million voters compared to 193.6 million in the US and 45.5 million in the UK.

For the first time in India, a party other than the Congress won a simple majority. The Preface mentions that more than 140 visitors from 30-plus countries had first-hand exposure to an excellent electoral system that could serve as a model for many countries to follow.

Revealing some highlights, Datanet India Director, Dr R K Thukral, said: "The book makes a comparative analysis of India’s general elections of 2009 and 2014 with the help of 205 maps, more than 235 graphs and numerous statistics to reveal interesting highlights and insights. Significantly, India’s electorate is larger than the combined populations of the US and Western Europe. The largest constituency by geographical area, Ladakh has more landmass (172,374 sq. km.) than many sovereign nations such as Bangladesh, Nepal and North Korea. For the first time, Indian voters had the option to reject all candidates using the NOTA (None of the Above) button."

Speaking at the book launch, Datanet India Director Madan Bahal said: "Since Independence, ElectionsinIndia.com has offered summary results of all parliamentary and assembly constituencies in India via its portal and geospatial analysis of election results at the town, village and booth level with the help of GIS maps. ElectionsinIndia.com and 720 other websites disseminating data about India, its sectors, regions, states and districts are owned by Datanet India. This vast ownership facilitates faster data collation, giving Datanet India an unprecedented edge in electoral insights and analysis, which the present results clearly indicate."

India turned into an e-democracy in the 2004 general elections when 10.75 lakh EVMs were used across the country. In 2014, 17,20,080 control units were used. The 2014 general elections witnessed the highest-ever voters’ turnout with 66.4% voting. The previous highest was 64.01% (1984).