On June 15, 2021, an election atlas, namely, General Elections 2019—An Atlas was released by the Election Commission of India (ECI), which consists of data and statistical figures of the 17th General Election held in 2019. The 2019 General Election is considered to be the largest democratic exercise in human history that witnessed the participation of 61.468 crore voters at 10.378 lakh polling stations across India.
Significance of the Atlas
This atlas will serve as an informative and illustrative document that brings to light the significance of the Indian electoral process and empowers the researchers and academicians to analyse and better understand the shifting patterns of voting behaviour along with the vast landscape of the Indian elections.
Salient Features of the Atlas
Some of the salient features of the atlas are as follows:
* The atlas includes data of the 23 states and union territories where women voting percentage was more than the male voting percentage;
* It has 42 thematic maps and 90 tables depicting various facets of the elections;
* It shares interesting facts, anecdotes, and legal provisions related to the Indian elections;
* It provides for better understanding and appreciation of electoral diversity of the country;
* The detailed maps reveal electoral patterns at various levels and indicate its spatial and temporal settings;
* The atlas reveals that more than 10 million polling stations were set up with the lowest number of electors per polling station in Arunachal Pradesh being 365 in 2019 General Election;
* It contains information about the largest and smallest parliamentary constituency in terms of electors, candidates, and performance of political parties amongst other parameters;
* It also provides details about contesting candidates;
* It provides the electors’ data in different categories and through various comparison charts like elector gender ratio and electors in different age categories;
* The Atlas depicts that the 2019 General Election witnessed the lowest gender gap in the history of Indian elections. The gender ratio shows a positive trend since 1971, was 926.
* It offers comparison of the average number of electors per polling station in different states during 2014 and 2019 general elections;
* It presents comparison of the number of contesting candidates in the general elections since 1951, etc.
* The Atlas compares the number of contesting candidates in General Elections since 1951.
* It also compares the average number of electors per polling station in different states during 2014 and 2019 General Elections.
Background
Since the first general elections in 1951–52, the Election Commission has been publishing compilation of electoral data in the form of narrative and statistical books.
Electoral data is primarily collected in India during the preparation of electoral roll by the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) as well as in the process of conduct of elections by the Returning Officers, which is then collated by these statutory authorities. This data is used by the Election Commission for compiling different reports.
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