Gujarat recently conducted the first ever e-polling in the elections of six municipal corporations - Ahmedabad, Sruat, Rajkot, Vadodara, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar. A total of 387 voters registered for e-voting across these corportations of whom only 182 were qualified for e-voting. Amongst these 182 voters only 124 exercised their franchise through e-voting.

The Gujarat state election commission had spent approximately Rs 34 crore for the online voting system developed by Tata Consultancy Services. Though the e-voting may have helped individuals who may be travelling out of their constituency on the voting day or would have enabled voters to cast their vote from home, but the number of e-votes is very less as compared to the amount spent on the software system for internet voting.

As per World Internet Stats India has only 6.9% of its 1.2 billion population which has access to internet and as per the election statistics of last year it was 56.9% of voters exercised their right to vote.

With such minimal response to the e-voting and only a small proportion of total population connected through internet, is India ready for e-voting?