The Election Commission of India

The Election Commission of India (ECI) is an independent constitutional body responsible for holding free and fair elections. It was set up in 1950, and the first general elections of independent India were held in 1951–1952.

It runs elections to the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha, the State Legislative Assemblies, and the offices of the President and Vice President. Elections to gram panchayats and city local bodies are run by the State Election Commissions.

Its structure reaches down from the centre:

• National level: a Chief Election Commissioner and two Election Commissioners.
• State or UT level: a Chief Electoral Officer.
• District level: a District Election Officer, with a Returning Officer who conducts the election and an Electoral Registration Officer who manages the voter list.

Four key tasks: setting election dates, enforcing the Model Code of Conduct, registering political parties, and overseeing the whole election process.

The scale of the 2024 Lok Sabha election shows why all this is needed: about 968 million voters, 543 constituencies, and over 1 million polling stations. Many people are brought in to help, including teachers, maybe from your own school.

Of the 543 constituencies, 84 are reserved for the scheduled castes and 47 for the scheduled tribes, leaving 412 general seats.

At the polling station, three officers handle you in turn:

• The first checks your name on the voter list and your ID.
• The second inks your finger, gives you a slip (chit) and takes your signature.
• The third takes the slip and checks your finger.

Then you press the button on the electronic voting machine (EVM), hear a beep, and check the printed slip in the VVPAT, which shows whom your vote went to. And one person links the whole story: Shyam Saran Negi, a school teacher from Himachal Pradesh, was India's first voter in 1951, and voted again in 2017 at the age of 100.