Talk:2009 Indian general election/Archive 1

Disconnect between result summaries
The two different summaries of the alliances final seats won agree, but the net gain/loss figues are quite different (e.g- both state UDA controls 262 seats, but one says they gained 41 seats and the other 79 seats). DavisGL (talk) 06:30, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * This is due to the fact that alliances from 2004 for UPA is different from 2009. We had UPA have 218 seats for the previous election. So winning 262, is a change of 44. The one in the table, is the addition of changes for parties within the coalition. I think we can take a consensus on which should be put on the infobox. I wouldn't mind either way.--Harish89 (talk) 02:53, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Delete?
why do you want to delete this article

Do you hate elections?,the next elections are going to be held in 2009 and information would come in a trickle.when the 2004 us prez elections happened i bet a 2008 one was created the very next day so whats wrong with having a future elections page that also of the worlds largest democracy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manchurian candidate (talk • contribs) 13:20, 2 June 2007
 * Nobody said anything about hating elections, but Wikipedia policy states that it is not a crystal ball. If information does "trickle in" it can have an article then.  Useight 19:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * This article does seem pretty dubious. It consists of a single sentence. Is there not more to say about this subject now? If not, it seems likely that we shouldn't have an article yet. But maybe it should go to AfD. Herostratus 22:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I removed the speedy tag from the article, as WP:CRYSTAL isn't a valid CSD criteria. Also, as per Articles_for_deletion/2018_Winter_Olympics I'd say that there is precedent for keeping such articles; election is only two years away, and it is likely that parties/politicians have begun to prepare somewhat. If anyone want to delete this, take it through a proper AFD. Bjelleklang -  talk  Bug Me  02:01, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Takinig in view the current political scenario the elections wont happen in 2009 but sooner.SO i propose to delete the article(i am the creator of this article) until elections are really a possibility as announced by the mainstream press. manchurian candidate —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manchurian candidate (talk • contribs) 08:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It looks fairly well sourced now. --Joshua Issac (talk) 00:07, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

499 vs 543 Constituencies
//The elections for 499 out of 543 Parliamentary Constituencies in all the states, NCT of Delhi and Union Territory of Puducherry (except Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Manipur and Nagaland) will be held on the basis of the newly delimited constituencies as determined by the Delimitation Commission set up under the Delimitation Act, 2002[2]// --Based on election commission news letter, election will be held for all 543 constituencies in 5 phases (124+141+107+85+86). --Kurumban (talk) 16:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(except Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Manipur and Nagaland) - these states/UT have total 39 seats. 543-39 = 504... not 499... Give the reason for 499 otherwise i will change it to 504 --Kurumban (talk) 16:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Aditya.krishnan.82 (talk, contribs) 09:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Kurumban. Good question. I took that line verbatim from the official press release by the ECI. It means to say that NCT of Delhi, UT of Puducherry and all states except Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Manipur and Nagaland will undergo elections under the new delimitation groups. This also excludes (implicitly) the remaining 5 UTs which have only 1 seat each. That brings it to 543-39-5 = 499 :-) Having said that, perhaps it might be worth rephrasing that statement, as many others are likely to get the same doubt that you did.

Coalitions
Have they been formed already? I do believe many, if not most, parties join a coalition after the election results are out. If the coalitions have been formed, can we find some credible references (newspaper etc)? --ti 23:21, 9 March 2009 (UTC) Aditya.krishnan.82 (talk, contribs) 23:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Tejas. That has been the case until the last 2004 election when the NDA fought the election as a coalition. This time the UPA and the NDA are fighting the election as complete coalitions. They have named their Prime Ministerial candidates based on the coalition support. (See links/references in the PM candidates section). Hope this helps.


 * Thanks for the info Aditya! Also, good work on the article! --ti 14:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

eci-press-release citation
Hi all,

I have added a named reference to the press release by Election Commission of India. Most news articles seem to have scanned this publication for announcements of dates, constituencies, etc. And ofcourse it is the authoritative information for all election-related info.

Therefore: if you are using any information from this article, you can simply use

instead of readding the citation information again! --ti 15:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC) Aditya.krishnan.82 (talk, contribs) 08:32, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Cool. This is exactly what I was looking for, but didn't know how to do it. Still early days for me with wikipedia updates. Without this, I used to look for multiple sources so that I didn't reuse the same source everywhere. A lot cleaner now. Thanks Tejas!

need to add criminal candidates
atleast 10% of lok sabha candidats have criminal background.plz add it www.nocriminals.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manchurian candidate (talk • contribs) 05:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

New map?
Hi. We urgently need a new map of the new delimitation of constituencies, so that the results can be graphically presented afterwards. Any takers? --Soman (talk) 13:23, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Do we have geodata for such a map? I created an SVG for the 2004 election results, using data from ECI website. But I could not find the updated boundaries. --ti 18:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * There is a map at http://eci.nic.in/press/current/Phase_Map.pdf . --Soman (talk) 12:43, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a map here depicting the current results http://164.100.9.199/ge2009/ Gaurav1146 (talk) 17:10, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

"Avg Turnout" column in "Polling schedule for each state/UT" section
Hi, I do not think that anyone has published the average turnout for each state so far. Usually the ECI publishes this information only at the end of all phases of the election.

The average turnout shown now seems to be just the average of the turnouts in the different phases, but this is not the real average turnout as each phase has a different number of electors. The real average turnout is the total number of voters across all phases divided by the total number of electors across all phases.

I would suggest to remove this column until we have official numbers released by the ECI. Aditya.krishnan.82 (talk, contribs) 02:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC) Aditya.krishnan.82 (talk, contribs) 17:02, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This has been since resolved as the ECI has now published the official figures.

Results by states and territories
This section in the article cannot respresent the correct information. In India, there will no one single party that will win the entire state. Multiple parties will win multiple seats in each state. So this table can not be used. Aditya.krishnan.82 (talk, contribs) 06:20, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ignore this question. I see a similar format was used for the previous election as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aditya.krishnan.82 (talk • contribs) 06:46, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

edit protection
need to add edit protection from vandalism.As the results are out many edits will be done which would conflict and cause confusion —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manchurian candidate (talk • contribs) 06:25, 16 May 2009 (UTC
 * I have removed the editprotected template because it is intended to be used to request an edit on a fully protected page. If you want to request protection to be applied to this page, I'd recommend filing a request at WP:RPP. 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 07:09, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, when posting messages on talk pages, please be sure to sign your messages using four tildes ( ~ ). 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 07:11, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

first since Nehru?
Article says:
 * Manmohan Singh, who is the first Prime Minister of India since Jawaharlal Nehru to win re-election after serving a full five-year term.[4][5]

This seems misleading. Indira Gandhi became PM in 1966, won an election the next year, and then won again in 1971. So I guess the election was held after four years, rather than five, but that seems really hair-splitting. john k (talk) 21:38, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * She didnt want to complete that term (67-71) and called for early elections. -- Like I  Care  22:13, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * That is a good point. But it is significant, that we have had close to 17 prime ministers, and Manmohan Singh and Nehru so far have been the only prime minister to win back to back elections, with one serving their first term to the full extent.--Harish89 (talk) 03:11, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * But this is just a really weird criterion. In Britain, for instance, tons of people have won multiple elections - but very few recently have actually waited the full five years to call an election.  Thus the last one to serve a full five years and win an election was...er...Attlee in 1950.  Prior to that, it was Lord Salisbury in 1900.  In Canada, which has the same five year limit, it last happened with Mackenzie King in 1940 and again in 1945.  The key factor here is not politicians' ability to get re-elected, but whether or not they decide to wait out their whole parliament, or call elections early. john k (talk) 04:47, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * well, the comparison isnt evidently between countries, rather, just within India. Considering how Indian political system has entered into coalition politics and the difficulty with which each government carries itself through to the goal post. -- Like I  Care  05:09, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This is true enough, but kind of serves to emphasize Gandhi's achievement as much as Singh's and Nehru's, no? Note that, in spite of India's greater political fragmentation than Britain or Canada, this has happened more recently in India (1962) than in Canada (1945) or Britain (1950). john k (talk) 19:04, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Numbers of votes and Percentages
I hope that the actual numbers of votes and the percentage of the votes received by each party will be listed in this article. The actual numbers of votes are the real indication of the support each party has in the electorate, rather than the number of seats.Stephen711 (talk) 02:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think the actual number of votes polled will be available - I don't think it has ever been made available. All we can list is the vote share of the ruling and opposition combines, since that's pretty much the only figure that makes out to the press. And, as always, that shall be done only when it is reported widely in the press, so speaks rohith. 12:34, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Those numbers are made available in the Statistical Reports. See http://eci.nic.in/StatisticalReports/ElectionStatistics.asp. The Election Commission usually publishes those a few months after the elections. If you can't wait, there's always the possibility of adding all constituency results manually (www.eciresults.nic.in). --Soman (talk) 16:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

UPA Photo: Manmohan or Sonia?
I'm just wondering about the photo on the main page. Manmohan Singh is not really the leader of the UPA, despite being prime minister. Sonia Gandhi is the UPA leader, so shouldn't she actually be the one with the photo on the front page? --Mezaco (talk) 01:22, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I see your point, but I think in terms of context of Indian elections, it is better to put the prime ministerial candidate as the leader, since he will be the leader of the country, and the leader of the coalition/party, should only be put, if they have not declared the prime minsterial candidate, like in 2004 election, that is why vajpayee was put as leader in previous elections, even though advani was the leader.--Harish89 (talk) 01:39, 18 May 2009 (UTC) Aditya.krishnan.82 (talk, contribs) 08:45, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Harish89. Once a coalition has designated a PM-candidate, he/she becomes the face of the UPA. In 2004, Congress did not announce a PM-candidate and hence the 2004 article has Sonia Gandhi's picture rather than Manmohan Singh's even though Manmohan later became the PM.

criminal cases!
according to an article in Times of India, 150 MPs elected have criminal cases against them including 73 with serious criminal charges. guess we should include this as well. -- Like I  Care  04:05, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Being elected does not prevent these cases from coming to trial. It will be interesting to see how many of the charges are prosecuted, and how many result in convictions.  Has anyone followed up on the outcome of such charges in the past? Fconaway (talk) 16:16, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * depends on the merit of each case and the individual's political clout. some in the past seem to have been barred from running for office. Wives of criminal-turned-politicians trailing in Bihar -- Like I  Care  16:51, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

stop censoring.I added a article about the criminal candidates and it was removed.Wy are you hiding the truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.163.55.47 (talk) 03:39, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

who is removing the tainted mps article.Why dont you want to have it in the article?. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manchurian candidate (talk • contribs) 15:43, 20 May 2009 (UTC) Aditya.krishnan.82 (talk, contribs) 04:30, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks like its still there under another name? MPs with pending criminal charges and this gives the summary of the candidates with such charges who got elected in 2009.

2008 Lok Sabha Vote of confidence
I noticed that the this section was removed. I thought it was appropriate for this article, because if the congress were to lose the vote of confidence, we would have had elections last year. Even if it doesn't have a section on its own, it should at least go under the background of the election, since the reason, congress were to complete its full 5 terms, and have this election, is because they barely got the vote of confidence last year. Any thoughts?--Harish89 (talk) 02:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I dded this back to a background, dotn know why it was removed (and not discussed here), but add back the relevant materialLihaas (talk) 09:25, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Article Rating
This article is currenly rated as "C". Does anyone know what is needed to improve the rating of the article? Is there a clear path for an article? Aditya.krishnan.82 (talk, contribs) 17:00, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * One has to add this article for reviewers to assess. I have added this article for assessment. Hopefully this article can get a higher rating. The 2007 presidential election article for India, got a B rating, I am sure this article is much better.--Harish89 (talk) 04:54, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Leader's seat in Infobox
The article shows Manmohan's Singh's seat as Assam (Rajya Sabha) whereas for Prakash Karat it shows did not contest. This is a bit misleading as it may give the impression to a foreign reader that Manmohan Singh contested the election. Shouldn't we have did not contest for both of them. Gaurav1146 (talk) 07:46, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I was under the impression that you contest for both seats in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The only difference is people elect you in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members are indirectly elected. But if people feel that did not contest is misleading we could just put none.--Harish89 (talk) 23:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The article is about elections to the 15th Lok Sabha. The Rajya Sabha has a different tenure (6 years) and a different election schedule. So, I am not sure if putting only the Rajya Sabha seat is correct when the article is about the Lok Sabha elections. But at the same time, he is eligible for Prime Minister's post by being a Rajya sabha member. I think we could mention did not contest as well as Member (Rajya Sabha) in the Leader's seat section (like this revision ).  Gaurav1146 (talk) 09:10, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That makes sense, but if we put Rajya Sabha member, it is self explanatory that he does not have a Lok Sabha seat. On terms of "impression to a foreign reader Manmohan Singh contested the election", he did the contest the election as PM. If we put did not contest, that might confuse the reader even more. Prakat does not have a seat, or has contested for a seat as an MP (Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha), so thats why I thought it was appropriate to put did not contest. Since the infobox has leader's seat, I don't think it particularly has to be Lok Sabha seat, even though it is Lok Sabha election. We have further clarified it by saying its a Rajya Sabha seat, since he needs to be an MP, to be the PM.--Harish89 (talk) 19:10, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I feel in the current context the Leader's seat should refer to the Lok Sabha seat. As for "contest the election as PM", in a parliamentary system the Election commission does not conduct the election for the PM. The elections are held for individual constituencies which Manmohan Singh did not contest. But as you said did not contest can be confusing, I suggest how about if we use did not contest Lok Sabha elections , Member (Rajya Sabha).We might provide more details about this in the Prime ministerial candidates section. Gaurav1146 (talk) 04:38, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Based on our discussion and your first reply, I have changes the Leader's Seat for Prakash Karat to None. If by Leader's seat you are not referring to the 15th Lok Sabha seat contested by the Leader, it makes sense to put None instead of did not contest. Though I still feel that the leader's seat/constituency should refer to the seat in Indian general election, 2009.Gaurav1146 (talk) 06:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Too many tables?
I feel the article has a few tables too many - particularly the tables on the UPA/NDA/TF constituents, results by party and results by state. These make the article extremely cumbersome and unwieldy, and as a result it may not conform to WP guidelines on article length and summary style (particularly since sub-articles exist for each of these). IMHO, a few of these tables should go. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 09:19, 7 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I have removed a few tables, moving the information to the respective sub-articles in some cases. A lot of work still remains to be done - I think the section on 15th Lok Sabha is quite unnecessary on this page, particularly since it focuses only on the Council of ministers (too many tables there as well). We still have to work top get this article to a more manageable size, and for that we need to copyedit and format the page, and remove extraneous information wherever necessary. I will be working on this page to help and improve it. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 04:48, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I moved the deleted 15th Lok Sabha to the Lok Sabha page. Please make sure that if there are additional information that needs to be removed from the main page, if possible move it to a separate page.--Harish89 (talk) 19:20, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Prime Ministerial Candidates
I think the above section is unnecessary and could be merged with the preceding section on Campaigning. Any thoughts? Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 16:33, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with it. It could also be merged under coalitions. We could also add a few things about PM candidates that the Third Front indicated they would support. Like for example, when the AIADMK got in trouble for mentioning Sharad Pawar as a PM candidate, if the Third Front were to support Congress after the election.--Harish89 (talk) 17:29, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea - I'll merge it with Coalitions. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 17:50, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Web / Technology in this Election
Is it worth mentioning about the increase in use of technology / web in this election. Jaago_re, BJP's adsense campaign, SMS / mobile campaign by parties, sites like votereport.in, google's(translated) / ECs voter list search considering this is the first indian election with significant web/technology presence. Thoughts welcome Srikanth (speak)  19:01, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

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