On Monday in northwest India a team made up of election officials, forestry rangers, security personnel and a local magistrate will venture into a jungle frequented by lions, bears and crocodiles in the pursuit of democracy.
Aboard their four-wheel-drive vehicles, the 15-strong party will bring with them an electronic voting machine (EVM) and a vial of indelible ink. They will sleep overnight in a forest office where they will set up a polling booth before voting begins on Tuesday morning. The group will remain in the forest until 6pm the next day — all so that a single voter can cast his ballot.
That sole elector is Haridasji Udasin, the mahant (priest) of a temple to the Hindu deity Shiva, located deep in the Gir forest national park, which is also the last natural refuge of about 600 Asiatic lions. On Tuesday he will first dip his left index finger into the purple-black ink — the classic symbol of Indian polls — a measure designed to ensure people do not try to vote more than once.
Then he will press a button on one of the 5.5 million EVMs that circulate around the country at election time, having his say in the largest election that any country has held.
India’s national election is always a democratic spectacle unlike any other but this is the first it has held since becoming the world’s most populous state, supplanting China, which does not trouble its people with such democratic niceties.
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It began last month and stretches over 44 days. The forest office is in Gujarat, the home state of Narendra Modi, the prime minister, whose Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is heavily favoured to win by another landslide after a decade in power.
India switched from ballot papers to electronic voting more than 20 years ago to cut costs, speed up vote tallying and reduce electoral fraud. Voters press the button against the name of the candidate or the party symbol flashing on the screen. The device also features a control unit for an official to ensure everyone can vote only once, and a so-called voter verifiable paper audit trail unit, which can deliver a printed slip if ballots are challenged or subject to random auditing. Lawsuits by opposition parties alleging manipulation of the voting machines have been dismissed in the courts.
Electoral rules state that, wherever possible, there must be a polling booth within 2km (1.2 miles) of every habitation in India.
By the time the election winds up in June some 11 million poll workers will have been deployed, using helicopters, pick-up trucks, boats, donkeys and human porters to carry EVMs to around a million polling stations set up in locations ranging from village schools to tents and shipping containers, serving 970 million voters.
“We will walk the extra mile so voters don’t have to,” said Rajiv Kumar, the chief election commissioner, as he described the vast operation. “Look at the geography of the country. There are rivers, mountains, snow, jungles. Think of the security forces’ movements. They will have to travel through the length and breadth of the country.”
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Udasin will not be the only person voting alone or in a remote spot. In the forested mountains of Arunachal Pradesh, in the far northeast near the border with China, it took a day for election workers to reach Malogam village, with just one registered elector, when the state voted on April 19.
Next month officials will set up the world’s highest polling station (at an altitude of 15,256ft), braving thin Himalayan air and chill temperatures, so that residents of Tashigang in Himachal Pradesh can cast their ballots in the final round on June 1.
So huge is the operation that voting has to be staged for different constituencies across seven staggered rounds to allow staff and machines to move between locations. Gujarat votes this week in the third of those rounds. In Uttar Pradesh, with a population of more than 240 million, there is voting on all seven rounds.
Another reason for the multi-stage elections is security demands. Tens of thousands of federal security forces are freed from their usual duties such as guarding borders to deploy alongside state police to prevent violence and accompany electoral officials and machines.
This year officials, and voters, face an additional challenge — a heatwave across south and southeast Asia, which is forecast to drive temperatures past 40C in Gir this week.
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In a country where almost everyone has to line up to vote in person, the heat has been cited as a factor in a dip in turnout on the first two polling days, down to 66 per cent from more than 69 per cent at the same stage in 2019.
Only people with disabilities, those aged over 85 or some essential workers are exempt from in-person voting. So the long heatwave smothering the country has raised questions about how future elections are conducted.
The four previous elections this century have been held in April and May, while the last one to stretch into June was in 1991. Some are calling for a change in the now customary — but not fixed — voting calendar.
As in Britain, the prime minister can choose an election date within the parliament’s five-year term. But with winters often very harsh in northern India, the annual monsoon normally arriving in June, differing cropping schedules, not to mention Hindu wedding seasons, the options are limited.
Of the 191 seats where polling will be be held in the next two voting rounds on May 7 and May 13, some 136 are projected to experience highs above 40C. In 38 constituencies, the predicted maximum is 42.5C or higher, with warnings that the heat index — combining temperature and humidity — will exceed 50C in many places.
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The dangers were highlighted in Yavatmal in eastern Maharashtra, 400 miles into the interior from the state capital Mumbai, when Nitin Gadkari, a Modi cabinet minister, fainted at election rally.
His collapse prompted Mamata Banerjee, the West Bengal chief minister and a Modi critic, to question the schedule. “Electioneering in the scorching heat of this cruel summer is indeed unbearable,” she wrote on social media. “Can you imagine, our seven-phase elections will continue till 1st June??!!”
With turnout down, some analysts have suggested that voter apathy fuelled by the heat could be a contributing factor, along with weddings — the first round on April 19 coincided with an auspicious date for Hindu nuptials.
In the Gir reserve, Udasin has few distractions. He has not been canvassed for his vote as political parties avoid campaigning in the forest, which has a few other small settlements, due to the presence of wild animals.
But he never misses a vote and is clear about what he would like to see from his elected representatives, he said after voting in state elections two years ago: “All I want is improvement in the condition of the roads.”
