(Samajweekly) Till yesterday, 28 election workers have died in Uttar Pradesh, which includes a large number of low-paid Home Guards. Expressing deep grief over this, National President of All India Peoples Front S. R. Darapuri has called it the result of administrative negligence and mismanagement. In a statement issued to the press, he also questioned the Election Commission and said that it should tell the country what is the justification for conducting the general elections in seven phases in such extreme and deadly heat and is it not to benefit the ruling party. Demanded that proper arrangements of drinking water, coolers, ORS etc. should be made on priority basis for counting of votes.
He said that the current Lok Sabha election has been the longest and the most phased election till date. This election has run for 80 days starting from March 19 to June 4. It is worth noting that April, May and June are the hottest months in which a large number of deaths occur due to heat stroke etc. Conducting elections in such extreme heat is an atrocity on the public.
In this regard, he has said that before 2014, the number of phases of elections was not more than 3 or 4 and there was not more than 3-4 days’ time between different phases. Now the number of phases has been kept at 7 and the time between them is 7 to 8 days. Now when the availability and mobility of forces for duty has increased and the work of assigning duty etc. is done faster with the help of computers, there is no justification for keeping the number of phases so high. He further said that conducting elections for 80 days is neither in the public interest nor in the country’s interest. Because due to a large population of the country being busy in elections for such a long period, so many human hours are wasted and production is lost. Political parties or people contesting elections spend billions in such long elections which gives rise to many types of corruption and malpractices. It is worth thinking that when elections can be completed in one day in foreign countries, then why cannot the Government/Election Commission claiming that the country has gone digital get it completed in the shortest possible time.
All India Peoples Front has requested all the political parties, intellectuals and organizations and individuals demanding election reforms to consider raising the demand of making the election process simple, short term and less expensive. The Election Commission has also been requested to take initiative to make the election process more simple, concise and less expensive.
S R Darapuri, National President of All India Peoples Front
