NEW DELHI: ‘General Elections 2014: Reference Handbook’ , a compendium on past elections and the latest provisions relating to the general elections, was released on 3 April to  disseminate information about the mammoth exercise to elect the sixteenth Lok Sabha. 
 

The Press Information Bureau has made the book made available in English, Hindi and 11 regional languages, namely, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. 

The Bureau has also launched a web-portal, dedicated for the general elections 2014:  pib.nic.in/elections2014. This will be used for dissemination of important instructions, orders and press notes of the ECI. The Reference Handbook also will be made available on this portal. On Counting-Day, i.e. 16 May, this portal shall also be used to disseminate official trends and results, based on real-time data made available by the Election Commission of India. These trends and results will also be shared on social media, and through SMS. 
 

A number of factsheets, backgrounders and features have already been issued on various aspects of the general elections. The backgrounders cover detailed and in-depth analysis of various aspects of past elections, with special focus on the fifteenth Lok Sabha elections (2009 general elections). State-wise fact-sheets impart information on various states pertaining to electorate, Parliamentary Constituencies, past elections etc. 

Many of the features have been contributed by senior officers of the Election Commission of India. The features range from the topics like ‘Evolution of Election System in India’, ‘Electoral Laws in India’, ‘Salient Features of Representation of the People Act 1952’, ‘SVEEP- Tool for Voters Awareness’. New developments like NOTA and VVPAT also figure in the topic-list and Guidelines for media, Paid News, Opinion Polls & Exit Polls have also been covered under features. 

Once the results have been declared, this office will analyse the data of the sixteenth general elections in detail, and a compiled version thereof will be released.