By H H Mohrmen
We have only been able to complete the first phase of the largest election in the world called the dance of democracy and yet so much has happened which will help teach us about the changes that occur with the election process in course of time. The changes are those which happened in the nation at large and as a matter of fact even the small state like Meghalaya is catching up with the changes that are happening in the country. The office of the Chief Election Officer deserves a pat on the back not only for running the election without any major glitch but more importantly for ushering in new technology and introducing new initiatives in running the present election.
In its effort to realise the theme ‘no voters shall be left behind’, the office of the CEO was able to issue election photo identity card in Braille to visually impaired voters; this is a major achievement at bringing inclusiveness in the way elections are conducted in the state. The office has also moved one step ahead and made it a point that differently-able people and senior citizens exercise their rights without any hassles by making the polling booths accessible to them. The support of volunteers like the Scouts and Guides, the NSS and the NCC is another new initiative in making young people engage in democracy and to have firsthand experience in the electoral process. Then there are pink polling stations and even childcare facilities in some places, but the major achievement of the office of the CEO is enrolling more than 19 lakhs voters in the entire state.
The credit of the successful running of the election also goes to the officials who manned the election from the Returning Officers at the different district headquarters, the presiding and polling officers to the drivers and the security personnel who guard the polling stations. The political parties, the party workers and the public too deserved a pat on the back because all have contributed in making the general election in the state a successful exercise. Although there is not much pomp and gaiety in the election, but the turn-up was much better than at any other time in the past.
The election in the state was lacklustre. The reason perhaps is because none of the star campaigners major from the national political parties visited the state. But the lack of festivity in the general election is also because of the absence of the major motivating factor, and that is money. Monetary influence in this election is negligible perhaps because the election office has been able to strictly enforce the model code of conduct and it was seen that poll official conducted intensive checks on vehicles which were plying in the state. Or because unlike the MLA and MDC elections, influence of money in the Lok Sabha election is negligible; the candidates are few and they are far away and beyond the reach of the general public.
This is evident from the fact that votes polled in the by-election to Selsella Assembly constituency conducted on the same day had a turn-out of 82 percent, whereas the average turn-out, for the MP election is 63.56 for Shillong parliamentary constituency and 75.60 percent for Tura. This time the office of the CEO received few complaints against politicians violating the model code of conduct and incidentally both of those who were complained against are BJP MLAs. While there was no complaint against the state election office, the election commission has received both bouquets and brickbats from both sides of the divide from across the country.
The people have not only made a beeline of complaints with the Election Commission, but this time people even took election related issues to the Supreme Court too. There were complaints about the launching of Namo TV, the Modi biopic, where people questioned the timing of the release and the launch of a TV channel. There were election related complaints made even to the office of the President against the government misusing the armed forces and the governor campaigning for a political party.
This time around there is another development in which people of various professions also indirectly took part in campaigning for the party or the alliance they support. The theatre artists, film personalities, retired bureaucrats, the retired heads of armed forces also came out openly against the ruling dispensation while others came out openly in support of the government. But also the most important development this time around is that the election is also being fought on new frontier and that is the virtual world.
This election has broken new grounds in which the election is not only being fought on the ground by organising marches, campaigns and rallies. It is also no longer a battle for the eyeballs on TV, but altogether a new frontline has emerged in the way the election is fought. The new election battleground are the different social media platforms, be it Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and what have you and the two major contenders in this battle are the Congress and the BJP. The print media too has come of age and not only made its presence felt on the internet by having its own e-version of the papers or magazines to make it easy for people to share but the electronic media too, are now deliberately making short videos to make it easy for sharing on the internet.
No doubt other contenders also made their presence felt in the virtual world, but the biggest battle on the internet is between the supporters of the two major political parties who try to troll each other and share memes, videos and stories to get the better of the other. The battle to outsmart each other has led to introducing of fake news and misleading memes from both sides. Thankfully the responsibility of administering and controlling the news shared and posts updated in the different social media platforms is now in the hands of those who run these different media platforms, otherwise government will find it difficult to control what is being shared on social media.
Now even different countries and particularly our neighbours are trying to influence the outcome of the elections, the case in point is that of Imran Khan commenting that it is better if the BJP and Modi win the election. Imran’s statement is like a double-edged sword. On one hand people are saying that this only proves that Modi has close relations with Imran hence the statement will in a way help the BJP; others have a different opinion. Others are saying that Imran is the head of the government which is the major enemy of the India, a country which has left no stone unturned to punish India. Since their inception, both the two neighbours have been at odds with each other. Pakistan has made all out efforts to create trouble in Kashmir and even make use every opportunity available to take the Kashmir issue to the international forum.
Therefore Imran deliberately made the announcement because he really wants BJP to win the election. The reason is, looking at the way the BJP- led government handled or mishandled Kashmir in the last five years has been to Pakistan’s advantage. Hence if he is given another term Pakistan will not have to waste time in interfering in the Kashmir issue anymore to send terrorists from across the border, because Kashmiri youths have taken up arms against the government now and it will not take much time before Kashmir will slip from India’s hand. And if as promised in its manifesto, BJP try to tinker with Article 370 then not only will Kashmiri youths will take up arms against India, the entire Kashmir will be up in arms against the government. There is therefore no surprise why Pakistan supports the BJP.
Then we have the award stories where we have countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia and others making announcements of giving the highest award of their country to Modi. It is an honour that our Prime minister is receiving a galaxy of awards but the question is the timing. The pertinent question is whether these countries are trying to influence the outcome of the elections in the country? The good thing is that all these issues and many others have been debated in the different social media platforms which helps enlighten the voters. Hence social media is not only the new frontier but it will be the most important election battlefield in the years to come.
If in the television medium the battle is for the eyeballs, in the social media the battle is for likes and views, but the ultimate goal of every media outlet is for shares and more importantly for its stories or videos to go viral. Social media is the real battle ground because one can see the supporters fight it out in these media platforms by commenting and making counter comments on a particular post. This also helps give us some idea on which direction the country is going.