Indian general election, 2014
A general election will be the next election for the 16th Lok Sabha in India. Voting will take place in all parliamentary constituencies of India to elect Members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha. The current 15th Lok Sabha will complete its constitutional term on May 31, 2014.
Background:
By constitutional requirement, elections to the Lok Sabha must be held every five years or whenever parliament is dissolved by the President of India. The previous election to the 15th Lok Sabha was conducted in April–May 2009 and its term would have naturally expire on 31 May 2014. The election will be organised by the Election Commission of India (ECI) and are normally held in multiple phases to better handle the large electoral base and its security concerns.
Candidates:
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been speculated to be the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. Indian National Congress’s Rahul Gandhi is also front runner for the post from his party.
Use of technology:
In January 2013, the Election Commission of India announced that it would be using an SMS based alert system called Communication Plan for Election (COMET) during the 2014 elections. The system, aimed at sending messages to the millions of government official on election duty, was successfully deployed in the assembly polls in Goa, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Manipur in early 2012 and in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat in 2012. The COMET system “uses coded text messages through mobile phones to collect data about officials, information about scheduled events like staff reaching the polling station, mock polls conducted, start of polling, voting percentages every two hours, number of voters in queue after voting time was over, and whether the poll party reached safely at the high security Electronic Voting Machine (EVMs) deposit centre.” The system would also send alerts to the local police in case of disturbance at any polling station.
Election India 2014 