Q.Highlight any one of the major changes introduced in the voting methods in India towards the end of 1990s.

The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) is a significant farmers' organization in India, known for its advocacy and mobilization efforts on behalf of agricultural communities. Its emergence and sustained influence reflect the ongoing challenges and political importance of the farming sector in the country.

The BKU gained considerable prominence from the late 1980s onwards, particularly in states like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana. It distinguished itself by organizing large-scale protests and rallies, often employing non-violent methods to draw attention to farmers' grievances. These grievances typically revolved around issues such as:

• Fair prices for agricultural produce: Demanding remunerative prices for crops to ensure farmers' profitability.
• Subsidies and government support: Advocating for better subsidies on inputs like fertilizers, electricity, and irrigation.
• Debt relief: Pushing for measures to alleviate the burden of agricultural debt.
• Land rights and acquisition: Protecting farmers' interests in matters of land ownership and government acquisition. …

The story of India's voting method in the late 1990s is really the story of a quiet revolution — one that took the country from the age of the paper ballot to the age of the machine. For decades after independence, every election in India was conducted using paper ballots. Voters would mark their choice on a slip of paper and drop it into a ballot box. It was a system that worked, but it came with serious problems: ballot boxes could be stuffed with fake votes, polling agents could be intimidated, and counting votes often took days or even weeks, leaving the entire country in suspense.

By the 1990s, these problems had become too big to ignore. The Election Commission of India, under the leadership of Chief Election Commissioner T.N. Seshan and later M.S. Gill, began pushing for a technological fix. The answer was the Electronic Voting Machine, or EVM. The EVM was not a computer — it was a simple, standalone electronic device with two units: a control unit with the presiding officer and a balloting unit with buttons for each candidate. A voter would press the button next to the symbol of their chosen candidate, and the vote would be recorded electronically inside the machine.

The first major test of the EVM came in 1998, when it was used in a limited number of constituencies in three states — Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Delhi. The results were encouraging. Voting was faster, the machines were tamper-proof (or at least far harder to tamper with than ballot boxes), and the counting of votes was completed in hours instead of days. The Election Commission then moved decisively. By the 1999 general elections, EVMs were used in 46 constituencies across the country. And by the early 2000s, they had become the standard method for all elections in India.