Compare people’s participation in election with that in Europe and North America.

People’s participation in India:-
(i) In India, turnout of voters has either remained stable or actually gone up.
(ii) In India, the poor, illiterate and under privileged people vote in larger proportion as compared to the rich and privileged sections. In 2004, it was 56 per cent for upper castes in comparison to 58% for OBC 60% for SC and 61% for ST.
People’s participation in Europe and North America:-
(i) In UK the turnout has gone down from 78 per cent in 1991 to 61 per cent in 2005.
(ii) In the USA, poor people, African Americans and Hispanics vote much less than the rich and the white people. In 2004 it was 60%, for whites, but 56% for Blacks and 28% for the Hispanics.