Elections

Story hook

On 26 April 2024, in the middle of the second phase of polling for the 18th Lok Sabha, the Election Commission of India did something it had never done before: it released VVPAT slip counts within four hours of the close of poll for every assembly segment, and accepted petitions for 100% VVPAT verification at the candidate's expense. This was the culmination of two decades of pressure — first from civil society (ADR, Common Cause), then from political parties, and finally from the Supreme Court (Subramanian Swamy v. ECI 2013; Association for Democratic Reforms v. ECI 2024).

The same election, 968 million voters cast ballots — the largest democratic exercise in human history. Universal adult franchise (Article 326 — voting age lowered from 21 to 18 by the 61st Amendment 1989). NOTA ("None of the Above") added as a Supreme Court mandate in 2013 — exercised by 64 lakh voters in 2024. Voter turnout 65.79%, slightly lower than 2019's 67.4%. Single Transferable Vote? No — India runs First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) at every level.

Behind this scale stands a slim 25-page document — the Model Code of Conduct — which is not a statute, not a rule, but a political convention of 1968 vintage. It binds parties from the day polls are notified to the day results are declared, and it has more teeth than many statutes because the Election Commission can issue censure, advisory notices, and FIR recommendations. Whether the Code should be made statutory has been debated since the Goswami Committee 1990 — the answer remains unsettled to this day.

Why this matters for UPSC

Elections + MCC + electoral reforms + NOTA + EVM-VVPAT are the single most-tested unit in GS-II under "salient features of the Representation of People's Act". UPSC Prelims has asked about NOTA (2017), EVM-VVPAT (2018), electoral bonds (2019, 2023), and the MCC mechanism. Mains 2022 GS-II: "Discuss the role of the Election Commission of India in the light of the evolution of the Model Code of Conduct." Interview boards probe whether you understand the distinction between statutory provisions, ECI directions, and political convention — a non-trivial nuance.