Election seasons make for choice stories, some of them “lip-smacking good”. Here is a taste of it: in this Lok Sabha elections, an independent candidate from Tiruppur constituency in Tamil Nadu seeks to ride high on top of the promise of free brandy every month to each family, for medicinal reasons, if he is voted to power.
That one was just for starters. And don’t let that introductory story mislead you; there are thankfully other stories where the unusual and the inspirational come together in a neat package. Here is one such story that has to do with transport. It was the Karnataka Assembly elections of 2008, and an independent candidate, Syed Sajjad Ahmed, from Chamrajpet constituency in Bengaluru, was betting on sustainable green power.
As election campaign vehicles went, he had the quirkiest and most ingenious of them all. His political philosophy and campaign strategy were together fused with this vehicle, and the three seemed to constitute a robust “unitary construction model”, so to speak.
It was a solar-powered battery car, one he had designed himself. He had started out as a fruit seller in Bengaluru, and raised himself by the bootstraps to become an electronic goods vendor, and then, he had learnt to make this solar car. Well, it is not exactly a car; however, for want of a better descriptor, I am using that word.
In his campaign, he was rooting for green technology, and for major political parties to field inventors and women as poll candidates. Of course, as is only to be expected with candidates that lack much backing and resources, he lost the contest. In fact, it was only in 2015 that much about this green visionary came to light, because in that year he undertook a drive on his solar-powered battery car from Bengaluru to Delhi.
Today, when the major political parties pledge their commitment to promoting EV technology, promising a conducive atmosphere for it, here is someone who “drove the talk”, nearly 11 years ago, when the same sense of urgency about green transport that we find today, did not exist.
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Here is a page from another poll archives, one from the US, that presents a 2008 study that makes a curious observation about the drive to the poll venue. It is bound to come across as extremely odd to us Indians, as there hasn’t been a comparable study here. But if we took it seriously, we would watch out, when we would head to the polling booth this LS elections.
During the 2016 US presidential election, this study about road accidents resurfaced. It said that on ‘election Tuesday’ there was a spike in road accidents across the US, a conclusion said to have been arrived at, after a detailed study of accident stats from many previous election Tuesdays, and comparing it with those from other Tuesdays. It had been conducted by Donald Redelmeier, a researcher, according to a 2010 article by The New York Times , who brought a scientific approach to the study of usually ignored aspects of public health.
The study first came to light during the 2008 US presidential election. According to the study, rushing to the venue, more driving on the roads, and traffic diversions were among key factors leading to a spike in accidents. A 2014 report about an AFP story on elections in Peru seems to corroborate this theory for me. On election day, it reported accidents that together claimed 30 lives, and confidently linked it to polling. It pointed out that voting was compulsory in Peru and keeping away from the poll booth would invite a fine. It explained that the combination of people rushing to the venue in their vehicles and poor traffic regulation together led to increased fatalities on election day.
I’m still not sure if we will ever have a situation in India corroborating this study. Yet, it doesn’t hurt to stay safe: So, start early and drive responsibly and carefully as you head to the poll booth.
