Roy Kapur Films Sets Biopic on India’s First Election Commissioner

Siddharth Roy Kapur‘s Roy Kapur Films (RKF), in collaboration with Trickitainment Media, is set to produce a biopic on Sukumar Sen, India’s first Chief Election Commissioner.

RKF’s latest project follows the success of SonyLIV series “Rocket Boys,” a fictionalized version of the story of Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, who engineered India’s nuclear program and Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, who established the Indian space program. It will chronicle the life of Sen, the architect behind India’s first general elections in 1951-52.

Sen, a mathematician and civil servant, was pivotal in transitioning India from a British colony to a democratic republic. Tasked with organizing the world’s largest democratic exercise, Sen managed an electorate of 175 million people spread across 565 princely kingdoms and newly formed states.

The logistics were daunting. Some 224,000 polling booths were constructed and equipped with two million steel ballot boxes; 16,500 clerks were appointed on six-month contracts to type and collate the electoral rolls by constituency; 56,000 presiding officers were chosen to supervise the voting, aided by another 280,000 helpers; and 224,000 policemen were put on duty to guard against violence and intimidation. In remote hill villages, bridges had to be constructed to facilitate voter access. For small islands in the Indian Ocean, naval vessels had to be used to transport electoral rolls to booths. Tribal people from some forest…