ERODE: On a summer morning in June 1996, Modakurichi woke up to an election unlike any India had ever seen. Voters were handed a thick, 65-page booklet filled with names of 1,033 candidates. Inside cramped polling booths, people flipped through page after page, searching for their candidate, while officials struggled to keep the process moving.
That year, over 1,000 farmers were in the electoral fray as independents. The Federation of Tamil Nadu Farmers’ Associations had decided to swamp the electoral field with over 1,000 candidates to draw attention to their 32 long-pending demands.
While elections across Tamil Nadu were held on May 2 in 233 constituencies, polling in Modakurichi was deferred by a full month to June 2. Symbols such as ‘one pen, ‘two pens’, and ‘three pens’ had to be allotted to candidates. The then Chief Election Commissioner, TN Seshan, also arrived in Modakurichi to take stock of the unprecedented situation.
“In those days, the election fee was only `250. So, many individuals filed their nominations as independent candidates. Before the nomination deadline, we demanded money from party candidates to withdraw the papers of farmers,” C Nallasamy, the association secretary, who played a key role in the unique form of protest told TNIE.
“We mobilised 1,350 farmers and filed nominations. However, 1,029 candidates were selected during the scrutiny of nominations. Seshan came to Modakurichi and met us. He also said that our reform demands were just. Later, some of our electoral reform demands came into effect.
“We had demanded that the deposit be raised to `10,000 and that the number of proposers be increased from one to 10. At that time, there was no NOTA option, so we had insisted that voters should have the opportunity to reject all candidates,” Nallasamy explained.
However, a few of the electoral reforms they proposed are yet to materialise. “We had also demanded that a candidate must bear the cost of a by-election if he resigns from one of the two seats he contests after winning both,” he added.
Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan, the DMK candidate and winner in the 1996 election, recalled the oddities of that election. “Instead of a ballot paper, voters were given a 65-page booklet. The DMK’s ‘Rising Sun’ symbol was on page 25. Large barrels had to be used instead of ballot boxes. Despite my doubts, people voted correctly and ensured my victory,” she said. She also claimed one of the reasons the farmers filed nominations en masse was the speculation that “some individuals within the DMK didn’t want my inclusion in the Cabinet”.
“I could not join the Cabinet due to the delay in the whole process. The political machinations against me did not end there; it continued until 2021,” the former minister claimed.
K Seenivasan, the then assistant returning officer of Modakurichi, said, “We faced a heavy workload because 1,033 candidates were in fray. We had a team of 20 working in Chennai for over a week just to prepare the ballot book. Polling day procedures were delayed, and counting was even more difficult. We had to carefully check every page and count the votes.” A larger number of personnel than usual had to be deployed for election duties as the polling schedule stretched for over a month.