The 2024 Lok Sabha election is going to be the largest democratic exercise globally.
The buzz for Lok Sabha election 2024 is rising every passing day. In upcoming 45 days, India will witness a general elections across 28 states and 8 Union territories. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has declared the schedule of the upcoming Elections 2024. The dates for seven phases are April 19, April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25, and June 1.
But, what makes this election special and unique from others? Let's find out.
The first ever general election of independent India was conducted during October 25, 1951 to February 21, 1952. It was conducted in 68 phases! The total number of candidates were 1874 from 53 political parties. Among which, 14 were national parties.
In 2019 and 2014 Lok Sabha Election, 8054 and 8,251 candidates contested respectively. The highest number of candidates (13,952) participated in Lok Sabha election was in 1996. This year, the number candidates are going to be more than 8000.
India became the most populous country globally in 2023, which itself makes unique from other countries.
When, the first general election happened in 1951-1952. Among 173 million voters, 105,950,083 people casted their votes. There were at least 196,084 polling centres across the nation among which, 27,527 were exclusively dedicated to women.
The Election Commission shared “The total number of registered electors or voters in India are around 96.8 crore (968 million).”
There are 49.7 crore men and 47.1 crore are women. The number first-time voters are 1.8 crore, while young voters are 19.74 crore. There are 48,000 transgender voters too. There are 82 lakh voters aged above 85 and 2.18 lakh people are centenarians.
In USA, European Union, Indonesia, and Pakistan, the number of voters are 16, 40, 20.4, and 12.8 crores.
Addressing a press conference on elections to Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said: “There are 12 such states where the gender ratio is over 1000 which means that number of women voters is more than males and 1.89 crore new voters have joined, out of them in the age group of 18-19 years there are 85.3 lakh women electors so they are going side by side so that is a very healthy sign that women are also participating equally in our elections.”
The expenditure of conducting a nation-wide election is always high. As per reports, political parties and candidates spent over $8.7 billion during Lok Sabha Election 2019, which was more than 2020 USA election. The cost is predicted to go beyond $ 10 billion mark in Lok Sabha Election 2024.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has already mentioned 2024 as “a historic election year, with elections in 50 countries” including India, USA, South Africa, Mexico, and so on. Over 2 billion people in this world will be participating in election process.
Besides being the largest, 2024 Lok Sabha Election will be India's second longest after the first general election in 1951-52. The voting will continue over 45 days. Moreover, there are 10.5 lakh polling stations to conduct this election. There will be 55 lakh EVMs and 1.5 crore polling officials for the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections.
The result will be announced on June 4.
Truly, “India gets ready for the celebration of democracy...A mammoth exercise in democracy which is world’s largest electoral movement of man and material,” as mentioned by the Election Commission of India (ECI) recently.
