The Lok Sabha elections are in full swing. The third voting phase, scheduled for May 7, is a crucial milestone. This phase will witness all 26 seats in Gujarat and the remaining half of 14 seats in Karnataka going to polls. Once this phase concludes, voters will have exercised their franchise for more than half of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha. After that, the election momentum will shift to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where voting for all the seats will occur on May 13.
How all Indians got a vote
The history of elections in our country has multiple starting points. One of them is the discussion about every adult’s right to vote. Colonial administrators decided that an illiterate electorate, the absence of political organisations and the burden on the official machinery made adult franchise impracticable. After Independence, our Constitution framers discussed the issue at length. There was scepticism because of illiteracy, but there was also the belief that a limited franchise would be “a negation of the principles of democracy.” They decided that adult suffrage should be the basis of elections to Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies.