Counting chaos

It was for the first time that I had cast my vote. And the occasion was last year8217;s elections to the Sangli Miraj and Kupwad Municipal ...

It was for the first time that I had cast my vote. And the occasion was last year8217;s elections to the Sangli Miraj and Kupwad Municipal Corporation SMKMC. I had missed the earlier polls since I was only in my eighteenth year and wasn8217;t an adult, legally. That was in 1999. These were only the second general polls of this civic body.

I arrived from Mumbai early in the morning on the day of the polling after appearing for an MBA entrance test. Some changes had been made this time. Every voter was given the right to cast three votes. Three sub-wards were merged to form one ward although there were different candidates for each ward. Three different coloured ballot papers were printed for the convenience of the voters so that they could distinguish the different sub-wards. The polling went off without any untoward incidents. The ruling NCP was expected to emerge as the largest party, the Congress the second largest, while the BJP was expected to improve its performance marginally.

The moment of counting was much awaited and I kept tracking the poll results which were being telecast live on the local cable network, with an expert panel to assess the 8220;performances8221; and the 8220;surprises8221;.

The results of all the wards were declared barring one 8212; ours. As expected, the NCP had emerged with the largest tally, the Congress came second, while the BJP had improved its performance. It was late at night and I was unable to understand why the results of our ward remained undeclared. The next day, the local cable network displayed the tally of every ward except ours.

Then came the climax. It seems our ward had registered a record of sorts. The normal count of invalid votes in each ward is around 10 to 20. Our ward had polled the largest number of invalid votes 8212; a stupendous 1,400 plus votes were found to be invalid, which was close to 20 per cent of the total votes in the voters8217; list of that ward.

It appears that more than 90 per cent of the invalid votes were rendered so because two of the three ballot papers were left blank while the remaining one carried three cross marks. I could not believe that such a large number of people couldn8217;t understand the simple principle of any election: that only one candidate can be chosen at a time; that you cannot divide your vote among three candidates contesting the same seat.

Imagine, it is this very electorate that will now vote in the coming Lok Sabha elections. Those who hail the maturity of the Indian voter should, indeed, think again!