Index Cards

Index Cards Latest News

Recently, the Election Commission of India has streamlined, technology-driven system to generate Index Cards and various statistical reports after the conduct of the elections.

About Index Cards

• It is a non-statutory, post-election Statistical Reporting Format.
• It is developed as a suo moto initiative by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to promote accessibility of election-related data at the constituency level for all stakeholders, including researchers, academia, policymakers, journalists, and the general public.
• It is designed to disseminate data across multiple dimensions—such as candidates, electors, votes polled, votes counted, party-wise and candidate-wise vote share, gender-based voting patterns, regional variations, and performance of political parties
• The Index Card forms the foundation for generating about 35 Statistical Reports for Lok Sabha elections and 14 for State Assembly elections.
• These reports cover variables like State/PC/AC-wise elector details, number of polling stations, state and constituency-wise voter turnout, participation of women electors, performance of national/state parties and Registered Unrecognized Political Parties (RUPPs).
• Earlier, this information was manually filled at the Constituency level using various statutory formats in Physical Index Cards. These physical Index Cards were subsequently used for data entry into the online system to facilitate the generation of statistical reports.
• This manual, multi-layered process was time-consuming and frequently led to delays in data availability and dissemination.

Index Cards FAQs

Q1: Which elections are managed by the Election Commission of India?

Ans: By Article 324 of the Constitution of India, it is vested with the power of conducting elections to – Parliament, State Legislatures, Office of President and Vice-President of India.

Q2: What is a Registered Unrecognised Political Party?

Ans: These are the parties which are either newly registered parties or those which have not secured enough percentage of votes in the assembly or general elections to become a state party, or those which have never contested elections since being registered.

Source: TH