Wages of polls

Torn party flags, discarded bunting and pennants, banners of cloth and plastic and above all vast amounts of paper, lie abandoned at the different polling desks that rival parties set up around each voting booth. A day after the polls, the sight outside the polling booths is often as if a tornado has visited.

The ecological costs of frequent elections, especially the amount of paper, plastic, and diesel and petrol used during the campaign, are scarcely taken into consideration when the issue is one of the Indian electorate exercisingits franchise.

However, this blissful unconcern may just be changing as awareness grows about the environmental consequences of the mammoth exercise.

For the first time ever, the Election Commission this year directed all political parties to avoid using plastic and polythene for posters and banners during the poll campaign.

Non-governmental organisations and environmental groups had alerted the Commission about the debris after the polls. How torn banners, discarded plastic flags and bunting littering the streets, eventually end up in drains and gutters, choking them up and adding to the overstrained sewage systems.

8220;Plastic posters and bags have become a national menace. Which is why the Commission made a strong appeal to the political parties to avoid using these. The appeal went out early enough in the campaign so parties could not say they had not been warned8221;, said Chief Election Commissioner Manohar Singh Gill.

But a reality check would reveal that plastic continues to be widely used in theelectoral campaign, despite the EC8217;s directive. 8220;We can only direct the parties and leave it to their good sense8221;, says Gill, expressing his helplessness in enforcing the rule.

On some fronts the EC has been able to make a difference. For example, except for the elephant, animals are no longer allotted as party symbols. When the rooster was the symbol of a political party, and activists of the rival parties would wring the neck of the bird to show their disdain for the competition.

Similarly, the EC has exempted the staff and vehicles of the wildlife sanctuaries and national game parks in the country from being pressed into election duty.

8220;Our animal and bird resources are threatened as it is. We are anxious not to disturb the staff and resources at these sanctuaries8221;, says Gill.

A group of naturalists had written to the Commission drawing attention to the dangers of poachers having a field day if the staff of national game parks were assigned election duties.

While the plastic ban may be slowto catch on, one area where the Commission would be able to make a difference this time round is with the introduction of Electronic Voting Machines EVMs. These nifty, battery-run devices cut back the usage of paper by nine-tenths, since the traditional ballot paper is eliminated altogether.

At the flick of a button, the voter casts his voter, without the involvement of any paper. The only paper required is for printouts of the results once tabulated.

In Delhi alone, the seven Parliamentary constituencies used 5,100 reams of paper in the 1996 elections. This time, with EVMs being used in all the seven constituencies, the order for paper has gone down to 500 reams8211; a saving of 4,600 reams in Delhi alone.

On an average each Parliamentary constituency uses about 700 reams of paper in an election. In the current polls, EVMs are being employed in 46 constituencies, spread across 17 states, as well as the Assembly segments of these Parliamentary constituencies. The savings on paper usage will beconsiderable, with rough estimates hovering around 40,000 reams.

But till all the Lok Sabha constituencies are conducted on EVMs, general elections will continue to have an ecological dimension.

Environmentalists point out that its not just a question of the amount of paper used. Election campaigns are marked by endless convoys of cars, jeeps, trucks, guzzling tonnes of diesel and petrol, and spewing noxious fumes.

In the cities and even in the smaller towns, the advent of elections is marked by traffic snarls as candidates and their political supporters move around.

Another electoral hazard is that of noise pollution. As campaigning reaches a feverish pitch, the decibel levels of loudspeakers and microphones mounted on vehicles goes up progressively. The requirement that loudspeakers are not used after 1100 p.m. is often forgotten, and it is a frequent enough sight to see election meetings going on till late at night, with black smoke-belching generators lighting up the venue.

While the ElectionCommission has set legal limits on the amount of money candidates can spend in their campaign, the order becomes meaningless since it does not take into account the vast amounts of money spent by the political parties or by friends and kin of the candidate. The candidate is required to submit his accounts within 30 days of the poll being held.

Hoping to enforce the ruling on poll spending, the EC deputes a revenue observer to each constituency to keep tabs on the expenses incurred by the candidate. But the elaborate procedure of deputing an expenditure observer becomes infructuous since resources poured in by friends and family remains largely unaccounted.

The flip side of the coin is that the enthusiasm and exuberance that are traditionally associated with Indian elections would be lost altogether if campaigns were completely sanitised. The frequency of the polls, now taking place once a year, have also robbed the event of much of its excitement as well as raised concerns about the environmentalfallout.