As Bihar heads to the polls...

Electors in Bihar will carry their own dreams and those of candidates and political parties as they walk to booths in 121 assembly constituencies on Thursday morning. Election managers have meanwhile shifted gear from a three-month grueling phase of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls to the hardcore routine of the conduct of polls - logistics, law and order, rebooting of their surgical methods and of course enforcement of the vexing model code of conduct (MCC).

- AKSHAY ROUT

The Election Commission (EC) has been pointing to the four challenges it fights in delivery of a free and fair election: muscle, money, misinformation and MCC violation. For securing the poll process, 8.5 lakh civil and police personnel have been mobilized and include 350 EC observers, besides the existing ground force of 91,000 Booth Level Officers (BLOs), 243 electoral registration officers and their supervisors. Citizen complaints and 824 Flying squads on ground have ensured seizure of illicit inducements of more than Rs 100 crore so far. Neighbouring states and enforcement agencies are on high alert.

The second and final phase of the poll is on 11 November. EC has taken a middle position between some demands for a single day poll and the three phases that it followed in 2020. There is a case for limiting poll phases, so that disruption to regular governance and public life is the least. For the EC, primary factors in such phasing include security concerns and related logistics. In the third most populous state of India, prone to social conflicts, and with elections being passion raisers, a two-phase poll signifies measured progress, rather than landing up in a single-phase misadventure. Elections in India, unlike many in the West, are still evolving and therefore require protection of the forces.

Model Code violations in these elections have been within the tolerance threshold thus far. Credit goes both to political players and regulators. Recent elections have seen advisories and warnings from the Election Commission getting stricter in the wake of ugly violations of the model code by all sides. The onus is on political parties and campaigners, many of them election veterans; but the temptation of swaying the psyche of voters through exaggeration, insinuation and personal slurs abide.