If numbers are the yardstick what began on April 16 and ended on May 13 will be regarded as the ?mother of all elections?. Out of the total electorate of 714 million voters nearly 60% have made their choice. The 15th Lok Sabha will be installed shortly.

It is still too early to analyse various aspects of the 2009 election. It will take a few more days for the Election Commission to place on the public domain constituency-wise figures of candidates, turnout, valid votes, the share of each candidate and winning margins. An important aspect will be to assess in how many cases the winners obtained a majority of the total votes polled in their constituencies. It is an established fact that the majority of all previous Lok Sabha members have been elected by a minority of a constituency?s electorate and votes cast. Psepsologists have had their say: analysis of electoral systems will now have a chance to write and speak on what the results really mean in more senses than one.

A few preliminary conclusions may be considered. One is the number of candidates. With 8010 for 543 constituencies this has been the highest number, ever. National, Regional, State parties and various groups have contributed half the number. But the number of independents is a whopping 3829 which is 47.4% of the total. As one newspaper reported, in the past 15 general elections a total of 37,440 independents contested but only 214 could make it to parliament. This time it is only six. Why do then so many individuals jump into the fray? Just to play ?spoilers? to quote Dr Manmohan Singh? Some, without doubt, have shown strong commitment to public interest. Should individuals standing as candidates be taken as a measure of citizen participation?

The average number of candidates from each constituency is about 15, but this time several urban areas have had more than this share. Chennai South saw 43 candidates in the fray, the highest number in the country, with 32 as Independents. Chennai Central had 37, Lucknow and Chandini Chowk each fielded 41 candidates while New Delhi had 40. Are elections in urban areas evoking more interest than before?

The turnout percentages also appear to confirm past trends. If Mumbai turnout was disappointing, Delhi and the constituencies in the final phase made up for that to yield a final average of 60% for the country. Within each state the differences between urban and rural constituencies and more importantly between polling stations within the same constituency will be assessed in due course.

It has been claimed that the ?urban voice? will be more in the 15th Lok Sabha. Correlating the Census and Delimitation data the CSDS has identified 57 constituencies as principally urban. But this is at a rather high cutoff figure of 75% being the urban population in a constituency. If 51% cutoff is applied, the number will go upto 76. Since the population figures are based on 2001 count, if urban growth rates relevant to the area are considered some more constituencies will cross the 51% mark. It can be safely assumed that in the 15th Lok Sabha members from the mainly urban constituencies will approximate 100, about 18%. This need not be grudged; after all, the country is 28% urban. Does this mean that the urban voice will be louder in the new Lok Sabha? Will the real needs of the urban areas for basic services find better expression? This remains to be seen.

The answer will also be sought in the Assemblies. Andhra has had its election after delimitation. It is estimated out of 294 seats, the urban constituencies are 70. Karnataka is another state where Assembly elections have been held post delimitation. The situation emerging in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra and a few other states of significant urban growth will need to be studied.

By now many readers will be aware of the mysteries of the equations between ?vote share? and ?seats?: simply the first does not translate into the second, partly because of our ?first past the post? system. Yet, vote shares are important to assess the varied extent of voter support. Because of the large number of candidates, vote share has become highly fragmented. This time Congress and BJP, together accounted for 48.96% of the votes. The share of CPM BSP, TC, NCP and SP taken together was another 20.9%. As for the DMK, AIDMK, TDP, SS, RJD and BJD all had a share of less than 2% each. Independents claimed 4.16% and small groups totaling 16 and identified as ?others? accounted for another 8.4%. These data made available, thanks to the CNN-IBN survey, raise important questions of fragmentation in the vote share and the implications for the future.

There has been much debate about what the real issues have been in this election or whether it has been an issueless election altogether. The media blitz focused on personality based questions has been a major distraction in understanding the real points of contestation. A useful beginning has been made by the NGO Janaagraha under its ?One Billion Voters Campaign? for profiling the candidates beyond what is to be stated in the affidavits on criminal antecedents, assets and liabilities and educational qualifications. Though the attempt was limited only to five cities, the information obtained from several of the candidates indicate that the issues are not limited to corruption and terrorism but many matters more directly related to the constituency. A detailed analysis of both the Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies in Andhra will indicate how far the voters have been able to make a distinction between the so-called national issues and those pertaining to the State and the local areas.

As in the past, a massive exercise of this kind throws up important questions about changes needed in the election system such as the multiplicity of parties, proliferation of small groups and the very large number of independents. ?The first past the post system? becomes increasingly suspect as a measure of reflecting the voters choice. The identification of the candidates, the process of nomination, the period allowed for canvassing, the time taken for a phased election programme are all questions which need to be debated. Several alternatives have been suggested in the past by the Election Commission of India itself, the National Commission for Reviewing the Working of the Constitution, the Law Commission and others. Of course freedom of association is an organising principle in our constitution but the essential question which remain is how representative is our system of representation.

?The writer is Chairman, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi