Today, when questions are being raised about the safety and impartiality of EVMs, the demand for holding elections in the country by casting ballot papers in the ballot box is once again gaining momentum. In such a situation, you should know the story of how the first elections were held in the country?
Election activities have intensified. There is a war going on between the party and the opposition regarding the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). But today’s generation would not even know that before 1998, elections in the country were conducted through ballot paper? How were the first elections held in the country during 1951-52? How the fate of the country’s first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru till the fate of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1998 was decided by only this one company. Which has been manufacturing ballot boxes in the country since that time.
Today, when questions are being raised about the safety and impartiality of EVMs, the demand for holding elections in the country by casting ballot papers in the ballot box is once again gaining momentum. In such a situation, you should know the story of how the first elections were held in the country?
This company prepared more than 12 lakh ballot boxes
In the year 1951-52, when the first general elections were held in the country, the elections for the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies were held simultaneously in the country. This was the first opportunity for a newly independent country to hold elections on such a large scale. The Election Commission made huge preparations for this and it needed a ballot box to collect the ballot papers.
At that time, most of the companies in the country did not have the knowledge of how to make ballot boxes equipped with safety features. Then this work was completed by Godrej Group whose plant-1 in Mumbai (then Bombay) manufactured 12.83 lakh ballot boxes.
In fact, at that time, Godrej Group was the only one in the country which had the experience of making safes, lockers etc. That’s why by manufacturing 15,000 ballot boxes per day, the company not only completed its own order of 12.24 lakh ballot boxes in just 4 months, but also fulfilled the orders of those companies which could not deliver the ballot boxes on time.
The cost of a ballot box was Rs 5
According to Godrej Archives, when it came to designing the locking system of the ballot box, internal locks were used. In this, outer locks were not used like a safe, which were costly.
The price of each ballot box was fixed at Rs 5 by the government, so to prepare the ballot box in the same budget, Natthalal Panchal, who worked on the shop floor of the company, prepared the design of the internal lock. At that time, 50 prototypes of ballot boxes were prepared, out of which one was finalized, whose color remained ‘olive green’ for a long time.
Decision of fate from Nehru to Atal
Lok Sabha elections of 2024 are going to be held in India soon. This time, like many previous elections, the decision will be decided through EVMs. But from Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru till the time Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the Prime Minister, the fate of big leaders of the country has been decided through such ballot boxes.
Godrej has always been at the forefront in supplying ballot boxes to the Election Commission, although many other companies have also manufactured them. If seen in this way, Godrej’s ballot boxes have been deciding the fate of big leaders in the country’s elections.