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This is not a case study but implemented and tested in Andhraprdesh’s 2004 election.

After five decades of stamping the ballot paper and thrusting them into vintage boxes, Indians have pushed a button and decided the fortunes of many political parties and leaders in the India’s parliamentary elections, and its fifth largest state Andhra Pradesh’s assembly elections.

The world’s largest democracy also the world’s first and largest user of computerized voting machines.

Elections have lost their real meaning as far as the people and peoples’ safety concerned. Nation with hundreds of thousands of villages, having the general practice of Purchase of votes through money and liquor, preventing poorer sections from voting, large scale impersonation and bogus voting, purchase of agents of opponents, threatening and forcing agents and polling personnel to allow false voting, booth-capturing and large scale rigging, bribing polling staff and police personnel to get favors and to harass opponents, use of violence and criminal gangs, stealing ballot boxes or tampering with the ballot papers, inducing or forcing voters to reveal their voting preferences, illegally entering the polling stations and controlling polling process, all these are an integral part of our electoral landscape.

In some areas, following these threats, many of those eligible to vote were reportedly too frightened to leave their homes.

Indian officials, especially Police, should take all possible steps to ensure that every effort is made to prevent such incidents are fully investigated and that perpetrators are brought to justice.

In this connection Andhra Pradesh police have put in place an unprecedented set of security arrangements including surveillance by helicopters in extremists -hit areas to ensure peaceful polling. The police had evolved a four-tier bandobust system for the elections comprising posting security personnel at polling booths, patrolling of a group of villages by mobile parties, deployment of striking and special striking forces at strategic points and supervision by senior officers.

In old fashioned bandobust system the Police have to maintain a record of all forces and their deployments etc… in a printed format and kept at District headquarters with the Superintendent of Police.

The Response time to take an action when an incident happen is half an hour or more , cause the information of mobile parties, striking forces and there location and contact numbers are in printed format and this is in a big volume.

But response time for taking an action at the field in Andhrapradesh’s 2004 election is tremendously reduced to less than five minutes… how it is possible?

Yes ….. in Andhrapradesh the bandobust system more are less equal like classical bandobust with other states of world’s largest Democratic country …… then what made Andhrapradesh unique in this elections ….is it a Scientific approach, an Information technology usage or a Geographical Information System…….

No…….. it’s the amalgamation of classical bandobust at ground and controlling of these forces through IPS officers who are highly qualified in IT with help of Scientific approach, Information technology and Geographical Information System.

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