Ballot box that opened the 'destiny' of the legendary leader; Interesting story of ballot boxes

Godrej Ballot Box: Today there is a big uproar in the country due to EVM. The opposition is alleging that the election is rigged. Many organizations including the opposition are demanding to implement the ballot box voting process again.

The battle for the Lok Sabha elections is heating up. There is a round of accusations by the ruling party and the opposition regarding the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). The opposition has openly alleged that EVMs are rigging the voting. There have been many instances when major opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, expressed their conspiracy theories about the EVMs. However, The Election Commission has given an answer, but many people do not even know that before 1998 ballot paper was used for voting in the country. In this article we will tell you how the elections of 1951-52 were conducted. From India's first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru to the legendary poet and Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the fate of many stalwarts was locked in this ballot box.

More than 12 lakh ballot boxes in the first election

The first general elections were held in the country in the year 1951-52. At that time, elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies were held together in the country. India had just become independent. How did the Election Commission manage to hold such a large number of elections? The Election Commission made strong preparations. Elections were conducted on ballot paper.

At that time, many companies in the country did not have much experience in preparing ballot boxes and ballot boxes in elections. There was no security information in it. Then this Shivadhanushya Godrej group took the lead. At that time 12.83 lakh ballot boxes were manufactured in their project in Mumbai.

Manufactured by Godrej

At that time Godrej Group was manufacturing lockers and locks in the country. This company had experience and required resources for this work. Achieving the feat of manufacturing 15,000 ballot boxes every day, the company managed to manufacture 12.24 lakh ballot boxes in just four months. Not only this, but Godrej also completed the orders of other companies who were assigned the same task but we're not able to do this work.

Cost of ballot box according to the central government

According to Godrej archives, internal locks were used to create a locking system for ballot boxes. Outer locks were not used for the ballot boxes like the vaults. Ballot boxes were expensive due to external locks. But this internal lock reduced the cost of ballot boxes.

The central government fixed the price of each ballot box at Rs 5 at that time. In this budget, there was a lot of confusion over the preparation of ballot boxes. At that time, Natthalal Panchal, an employee of the company, suggested the idea of an internal lock. The box was prepared and shown. The color of this ballot box remained 'olive green'.

-Rahul Dubey