Chambers Book of Indian Election Facts

In this book there is a thorough description along with analysis of electoral scenario which covers Indian elections right from the beginnings to present-day India. The book is divided into three parts, (i) the age of Congress dominance (around 1952-77); (ii)the age of political fragmentation (1977-99) and, (iii) the age of ascendancy of the BJP (roughly 1999 onwards). It is reference book of Indian Election System with all essential information. A must-read book for all the voters of new generations. .

The book unveiled facts, figures and anecdotes in the most lucid way for everyone’s consumption. For a Journo like me, it will remain in my desk forever. The narrators did a splendid job. Thanks.

India is world's largest democracy. It feels good to say it but a lot...a lot goes into making a country democratic. And a thousand folds more goes into keeping it in a sane and functioning order. Elections, the process of electing your representatives in parliament, are the soul, body and brain of any democracy. Sans elections that are free and fair, a democracy is like a blind donkey trying to cross a river with a load of sawdust on its back. 17 general elections old, India is looking to elect its leaders and representatives again in 2024.We are once again in those times and days when speeches are given, allegations are made, money is thrown as if its mere paper, riots are inflicted and organized and people are murdered.Chatterjee, a professor of History at Calcutta University and Biswas, a special correspondent at Times group have collated and arranged a number of facts around general and state elections, enriched with details about who lost, who won along with some interesting facts we would never have known. It has over one thousand such facts and fascinating trivia, all centred around the festival of democracy: elections.It basically deals with only Lok sabha and Vidhan sabha elections, leaving out the elections for president and vice president.The book is split three ways: Book I tackles with the age of Congress dominance (1952-1977), part II with age of political fragmentation (1977-99) and part III with the age of BJP Ascendancy (1999 onwards).The book deals with some basic facts we all have studied in history and civics books like the first election in independent India took place from 25 October 1951 to21February 1952. It also throws some trivia that not many of us are aware of like anyone above the age of 21 was entitled to cast their vote in the Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha and local body elections. In 1988, the Sixty-first Amendment to the Constitution reduced the voting age to 18 years.But how was the country split into polling territories?India is divided into a number of Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha constituencies. This was arrived at by dividing the total population of the various provinces of the country into electoral constituencies of roughly equal demographic value. Constituencies tend to have roughly the same number of people, even though the territory covered could be very small in densely populated regions and very big in sparsely populated regions. This is the reason why more populous provinces such as Uttar Pradesh (territorially fourth largest state) and Bihar (twelfth largest) have much greater number of electoral constituencies than less populous ones, such as Rajasthan (largest state) and Madhya Pradesh (second largest).We all know that elections in India are organized and supervised by the Election Commission of India (ECI), set up by the Representation of the People Act 1950. Till 1994, the Election Commission used to be presided over by the chief election commissioner (CEC), the first one having been Sukumar Sen, ICS. He presided over the first 2 general elections (1951-52 and 1957). He had been so successful that He was invited to Sudan to preside over their elections.The book is filled with such fascinating facts.