DEAR PRIME

MINISTER,
Reforming the Indian Election System

Report done in partial fulfilment of

BUSINESS GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY (ESS 105)

SUBMITTED TO:
PROF. SUPRIYA ROY CHOWDHURY
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT
(Date of submission: 2nd September 2009)

Submitted by:
Group 3
A V Naga Chaitanya (0911286)
Bharathan Gopalakrishnan (0911300)
Hemant Agarwal (0911311)
Ravi M V (0911337)
Ankit Zatakia (0911356)
Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Indian democracy is Pluralist in nature where in a diverse population
tolerates each other and lives in harmony. This pluralism also brings about
lots of loopholes and politics in India has been able to take advantage of
them to suit their selfish needs. One major mechanism through which
politics has been able to take advantage of this pluralism is through
elections. In this report, we have tried to come up with possible reforms
through which some major problems in the current system can be
addressed.

The most important development in our election system over time has
been the rapid decline in the quality of democracy. A major breakthrough
in this aspect can be achieved by the decriminalization of Indian politics
by implementing more stringent measures such that only individuals with
a clean background take an active part in politics. Improving the
participation of the citizens in the democracy can be achieved by
providing incentives to the private sector to use its resources towards
spreading awareness. Enforcing political parties to implement
mechanisms of internal democracy will not only give more credence to
the principles of democracy but also curb the ill-effects of dynasty politics.
Measures should also be brought about to control the expenses of political
parties and auditing their finances.

Though, the Election Commission of India (ECI) is designated as an

autonomous body it is often hampered by pressures from political parties
and loopholes in the judiciary system. For enhancing the role of the ECI, it
is suggested that the ECI be selected by an independent committee so
that it will be free from influences of political parties. The ECI should be
empowered to recommend action against defection to prevent political
parties from misusing loopholes in the current anti-defection laws. The ECI
is the ideal body to ensure accountability of political parties by auditing
the election manifesto of the parties and making sure that there is
awareness of the achievements of an elected Government.

There are many facets of the way elections are conducted, due to which
the true opinion of the citizens does not reflect in the results of the
election, thus contradicting the fundamental definition of a democracy.
This can be addressed by a few major changes in the current election
system. With the implementation of a Preferential Voting system, it can be
assured that the elected candidate is preferred by a majority. The UID can
be used as a tool to bring major changes by having all voters’ details in a
central database and thus providing a base for future enhancements. It is
also proposed that candidates be barred from contesting from multiple
constituencies so that citizens can be sure of who is representing them as
well as saving the enormous expenses in the form of by-elections.

Since the political community will not show any inclination towards
implementing such reforms, there is a huge onus on NGOs, as they are
best placed to spread awareness among the masses and rally the society
to come up with the required pressure to be applied on the law-makers to
bring about such reforms.
INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGES
India is the largest Democracy in the world. In spite of having significant
socio-economic challenges and a deeply hierarchical social structure,
India has been able to maintain a flourishing democracy. This view is
echoed by Arend Lijphart’s who stated that Indian democracy has
displayed all four crucial elements of power-sharing theory i.e.

• Grand coalitions that include representatives of all major groups

• Cultural autonomy for these groups
• Proportionality in political appointments and civil service posts
• A minority veto with regard to vital minority rights and autonomy.
The success of our democracy is a complete contradiction to the John
Stuart Mills argument that ‘democracy may be desirable in theory but is
impossible in practice’.1

The secret to the success of a democracy lies in the confidence of the

voters in the fairness and accuracy of voting procedures. While our
democracy has matured over time, few flaws in the electoral process are
still alienating citizens from participating in the political and electoral
arena. In this report we document our analysis of the Indian electoral
system and suggest suitable reforms to overcome some of its
shortcomings. Some of the issues addressed are outlined in this section.

We have dwelt upon some of the barriers to active voter participation in

Indian elections. For instance, the complications and delay in electoral
enrolment makes the voters lose interest in the process. At times, voters
especially from rural India are not aware of the rules and regulations in
the electorate process and are exploited by those who want to misuse
their power. E.g.: Voters are not informed when their names are enrolled
in the electorate or the Voter id card of a voter is issued to another person
or removing the names from electorate list.

Yet another barrier is the difficulty in accessing information required to

make an informed electoral choice. It is likely that voters who are not
aware of the candidates’ past background may base their voting decisions
caste/religious identity of the candidate. In recent times, efforts have
been made by various Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to bring
the educational, financial and criminal background of the contestants in to
the public domain. However these efforts have not been matched by
initiatives taken towards disseminating this information to the grassroots
levels.

We have also looked in to barriers to contesting for elected office. The

astonishing money power unleashed by political parties during the
electoral campaigning has made political office a bastion of the
economically well-off. A study by NGO’s on the recently conducted
elections revealed that nearly 305 members of parliament had declared
assets exceeding Rs 10 million. This is nearly twice as high as in the
General Elections of 2004.2 This stands testimony to the increasing
influence of money power in the elections.

Sometimes even the social status of the candidates acts as barrier from
contesting elections. The deficiencies in the first past the post system
have been exploited by political parties which are resorting to nominating
candidates from the caste which has the maximum strength in the
constituency. This acts as a deterrent for the worthy candidate. This also
points to another flaw in the first past the post system: as the candidates
elected need not be preferred by the maximum voters he has no incentive
to serve all sections of the society. As expressed by Alexander Hamilton in
the federalist papers the electorate process should ensure that ‘the sense
of the majority should prevail’. This however is not the case in India.

Another challenge in the current system is the criminalization, although

action from NGO’s and Judiciary has pressurized political parties to act on
the antisocial elements in their parties, such cases are few and far
between and a lot still remains to be done in this direction. Internal
democracy within the parties could play a major role in this aspect. We
have explored how internal democracy in political parties can help
improve the political situation in India. Criminalization is tightly coupled
with sources of funds of political parties. Irrespective of their ideological
differences all parties have unanimously resisted any act or discussion in
this direction. The current system lacks the will and power to enforce a
law which makes the internal system of the parties transparent. We have
commented upon how civic society and judiciary can force political parties
to clean their internal operations.

The use of technology has also been explored. In spite of the

technological growth seen in the last decade, our electoral system,
barring the introduction of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) uses
processes which date back to the 70’s and 80’s. Operational expenses
associated with this mechanism are just unaffordable and unacceptable
for a developing country like India. The election schedule in the recent
general elections were spread across a span of two months whereas in
countries like South Africa which has similar diverse electorate as we have
were able to complete their elections in 1 day.3 While we understand the
magnitude of the task of conducting elections in a country as populous
and geographically dispersed as India, we do feel that there is scope for
streamlining the process.

While keeping these shortcomings in mind and at the same time

acknowledging that every system has flaws and problems, we have
attempted to come with a set of suggestions which are not unduly biased
towards any individual, class or social group and yet hold the promise to
strengthen India’s democratic systems.
METHODOLOGY ADOPTED
The main intention behind coming up with a ten-point agenda to reform
the electoral system in India was to come as close as possible to how the
system should be in an ideal democracy. Keeping this in mind, we tried to
analyse the major issues which are present currently and address them
according to their relative priority and criticality. To start off with, we
classified the issues into the broad categories of financial and business
related issues, operational issues, polity, media and voter awareness. In
each of these categories, the major problems were identified and the
reforms to be proposed were targeted towards solving these problems as
much as possible.

While studying any issue with the electoral system, the methodology
adopted was to understand how the issue had evolved into its current
shape. This was followed by understanding the merits and demerits of the
issue and trying to reason if there was a need for any change to be
brought into the current system. For any need for a change, the issue
should have a significant impact on the election scenario of the whole
nation. So, issues which we felt were located only in some regional levels
or did not affect a sizeable proportion of the population were not given
enough preference as compared to those at a national level. After that,
we tried to understand the reasons for any such change not being
implemented so far and the roadblocks faced, in the past.

Once an issue was recognized as critical, various alternatives were

generated to resolve the issue. For this, we studied the recommendations
made by the National Commission to Review the Working of the
Constitution (NCRWC), Law Commission of India, Election Commission of
India, Dinesh Goswami Committee, etc. We studied the proposals by
various NGOs and also election systems in various countries around the
world. From all the information available, we have picked the ideas which
we felt are most important to be implemented in India. We have also
suggested changes to some of the recommendations that could make
them more effective. ADD ADR

The parameters used to study the recommendations were the extent to

which it could help in solving the issue as well as the feasibility of
implementation of the alternative, both on financial as well as operational
terms. The main parameter used to evaluate the difficulty in
implementing the reforms was to see the changes that would be needed
either in the Constitution or the Laws of the Nation due to the proposal.
Also, it should be easy to spread the awareness of such reforms to the
masses so as to utilise its full benefits.

Based on this approach, we have come up with the following report where
we initially discuss the major issues that have to be tackled in the current
electoral reforms. Then, an elaborate plan of action is presented, where in
we have listed the reforms that we propose, the need for such reforms
and how they will be implemented.

1. PREFERENTIAL VOTING
Current election system in India is simple plurality, first past the post or
winner-takes-all. In this system, winner is the candidate who receives the
most votes regardless of whether the candidate receives a majority of
votes polled. The first past the post system is simple and intuitive. But
the system gives rise to anomalous situations where in a candidate may
win an election in spite of
not receiving a majority of Constit- Votes Total Percentage of
the votes polled. uency in favor Votes votes polled
of polled against winning
Table 14 shows two
winner candidate
example of the situation Dumka 208518 622012 66.48%
described above in the Buxar 132614 623615 78.73%
recent general elections. In
both the cases the winning
candidate was not preferred TABLE 1: VOTING PATTERNS IN DUMKA AND BUXAR
by the majority of the voters.
Technically the candidate could be the winner of the elections but it is
against the spirit of democracy in the sense that the winner does not
represent the majority of voters. In the current process the votes against
the winning candidate are not considered in determining the outcome and
the winner takes it all or in other words, the “winner’s bonuses”
phenomenon is too predominant. This system encourages the caste
cleavages in the society i.e. the caste which has maximum population
determines the winner and creates a ‘Safe seat’ for the contestants.
Political parties misuse this system by selecting the candidates based on
their caste and not by their credibility.
These problems could be solved if some of the alternate voting system
were incorporated. After studying the alternate voting systems currently
used in other democratic countries, we suggest the usage of preferential
voting with single transferable vote. In this process each voter ranks a list
of candidates in order of preference. Australia uses this form of electoral
process.
Below is the explanation from Australia’s election commission on
preferential voting process.
First, all the number ‘1’ votes are counted for each candidate. If a
candidate gets more than 50% of the formal first preference votes then
they are immediately elected. If no candidate has an absolute majority,
the candidate with the fewest votes is excluded. These votes are then
transferred to the other candidates according to the second preferences
shown by voters on the ballot papers. If still no candidate has an absolute
majority, the remaining candidate with the fewest votes is excluded and
these votes are transferred. This process will continue until one candidate
has more than half the total votes cast and is declared ‘elected’.5
This system prevents the election of any candidate who lacks an absolute
majority of the vote and also removes the safe seats.

2. REGULATING PARTY FUNDING AND ELECTION SPENDING

The ideal electoral system would provide a level playing field for all the
citizens to contest for office but unfortunately the in India, political office
has become the forte of the wealthy or those who cater to them. Increase
in the number of millionaires in the parliament is an indicator to this fact.
The ceiling on election expenditure for every candidate — Rs 25 lakh for a
Lok Sabha seat and Rs 10 lakh for an assembly seat — is observed more
in breach than in practice. According to reports, in the recent state
elections the Andhra Pradesh police have seized Rs 24.20 crore,
presumably meant for distribution among voters. There are also incidents
where incentives such as sports kits, saris etc. been distributed among
the voters.6
Recently the central government has proposed that Electoral Trusts be
established to bring about transparency in the funding of political parties.
While this move is a step in the right direction, it is but a very small step.
Our proposal in this regard seeks to channelize all bulk donations to
political parties funding through a central fund without curbing the
freedom of choice of the donor.
• Establish a central fund where the donors can donate funds to the
political parties. Donor would have the freedom to choose to which
party he wants to donate.
• In case the donor does not have any particular preference regarding
the parties then the funds should be used to provide platform
forcandidates who are lacking financial resources to reach out to the
public. E.g.: Free air time in electoral and print media
• Parties must publish their audited financial statements in the public
domain. The reports should clearly state
○ Total value of funds and gifts received
 ○ The total value of expenses incurred
○ Details of all donations received above a certain threshold
• Apart from the above annual report the parties should also publish
financial statements of individual election campaigns at the
constituency level which gives the details of electoral expenditure
(including advertising, rallies etc.) incurred between the issue of
election notification and the date of announcement of election
schedule.
• Stringent action must be taken against the parties found violating
the rules
○ Issue an initial warning in case of first offence
○ Issue a final warning in case of second offence
○ Cancel the recognition of the party for a year in case of 3rd
offence
○ Cancel the registration of the political party upon repeated
abuse of funding
This implementation of this or an equivalent proposal which seeks to keep
a tab on the finances of political parties would require the generation of
strong political will. However, the gains to society at large are wide
ranging. This could be the first step to put a stop to the abuse of political
office for personal gains.

1. AUDITING OF ELECTION MANIFESTO

A party manifesto is viewed as a window to the range of activities that will
be accomplished by a political party, if it comes to power. But there is no
check on whether the party fulfils its promises when it comes to power.
This allows the parties to put up vote grabbing points in their manifesto
and then to go back on their words, when elected to power. This is
equivalent to cheating the people of India.
A look at the Common Minimum Program (CMP) of the UPA Government
will illustrate the point. The CMP stated that “The government will commit
itself to a comprehensive programme of urban renewal and to a massive
expansion of social housing in towns and cities”. Although many
programmes like JNNURM and VAMBAY had been constituted towards
increasing the housing options available, according the Technical Group
on the Estimation of Urban Housing Shortage, at the beginning of the 11th
Plan period (2007) the total housing shortage was 24.71 million. This
implied that about 37 per cent households required a house or needed
repairs to the old one. But the total dwelling units constructed or
upgraded would be 3.7% of the total housing shortage. At this rate, it
would take about 25 years to meet the housing shortage that existed in
2007.7
The public expenditure on education in India has registered a decline both
in terms of the amount allocated to the sector as a proportion of GDP and
also in terms of priority. The Government’s expenditure on education was
around 3 percent of GDP in 2006-07 which was way below the promised
expenditure of 6 percent of GDP. Also, during the first four years of its
tenure, the UPA spent only around 1 percent of GDP on health which is
less than its promised spending of 3 percent.
By no means is this phenomenon limited to the UPA alone. Parties in
power, at the state and centre have time and again backtracked or simply
ignored their manifestos after taking office. Due to this the election
process and political parties have lost credibility in the public eye and the
masses are increasingly turning a deaf ear to election campaigns. Checks
and balances are required to reverse this phenomenon. We believe that
the proposals made below will help restore the sanctity of elections in the
minds of the Indian voter.
1. There should be a check on whether the promises made during
elections, in the form of manifestos, have been fulfilled by the
elected party or not. This can be in the form of a report by ECI
presenting a fair evaluation of the government at the end of its
tenure.
2. Also, the newly elected government can be mandated to
compulsorily frame a common minimum programme b which can
then be used as a benchmark to evaluate the performance of the
government.
The above proposals will help keep the incumbent government
accountable for fulfilling at least some minimum tasks during its tenure.
The ECI can take assistance from NGOs and civil service organisations for
preparing the report

1. CURBING POLITICS OF DEFECTION

The 91st Amendment to the constitution of India has amended Articles 75,
164, 361B and Schedule X of the constitution to considerably strengthen
the Anti Defection law.8 The solidarity shown by both Houses of the
parliament to implement most of National Commission for the Review of
the Working of the Constitution’s (NCRWC) recommendations regarding
defection through this amendment act is exemplary to say the least.
However the 91st Amendment Act has not addressed the issues arising
from the provision that, any question as to whether a member of a House
has become subject to disqualification under Schedule X shall be referred
for the decision of the Speaker of the House (or the chairman, as the case
may be).
This provision has been a source of controversy and much abuse. There
have been claims in the past that this extraordinary power of the Speaker
of the House has been exercised in extraordinary ways. For instance,
successive speakers of the Legislative Assembly have Goa has exercised
their power amidst controversies in a series of cases, the latest of which
erupted in February 2005. However the phenomenon is by no means
limited to Goa. The Houses of Mizoram (1988) and Nagaland (1990) have
also been through similar circumstances.9 Notable is the fact that the Anti
Defection Law has been at the centre of yet another legislative
controversy in 2005 in spite of undergoing significant revision.
Controversies such as these which are centred on claims of abuse of
power exercised by the Speaker of the House not only dilute the office of
the Speaker but also challenge the effectiveness of the Anti Defection
Law. The NCRWC10 (2002) and the Election Commission of India 11 (ECI,
2004) have looked in to the issue and have recommended that “As in the
other cases of the disqualifications under the said Articles 103 and 192, in
the case of disqualifications under the Tenth Schedule also, the President
or the Governor may act on the opinion given by the Election
Commission.”
We find merit in this proposal. We believe that the implementation of the
above proposal will considerably reduce the risk of abuse of the Anti
Defection Law by political powers. It will also significantly reduce claims of
partisan behaviour made against the Office of the Speaker, the
preservation of integrity of which is central to the smooth functioning of
Legislative Houses.
More than anything else we believe that the implementation of this
proposal will go a long way towards curbing corruption and horse trading
in Indian politics and improve the stability of Government. It will not just
aid in increasing the confidence of citizens in the democratic processes of
India but will also result in reduction of election expenditure incurred on
re-elections.
 2. DECRIMINALIZATION OF INDIAN POLITICS
Criminalization has become a worrisome characteristic of India's politics
and electoral system. A look at the recent elections’ statistics indicates
that the involvement of criminals in politics is rising. The number of MPs in
Lok Sabha with serious criminal records has rose from 55 in 2004 to 74 in
2009 which constitutes 13.83% of the House’s strength. 12 The findings
point to fundamental defects in the current electoral system.
Currently, disqualification of a candidate for criminal offences is provided
for in Section 8 of the Representation of People Act, 1951. As per sections
8(2) and 8(3), if an individual is convicted by a Court of Law, he is
disqualified from contesting an election for the period of imprisonment, if
any, and six years thereafter. Under Section 8(1), the disqualification is
only for a period of six years from the date of conviction, irrespective of
the punishment being fine or imprisonment.
This has given rise to an anomalous situation: a person convicted for an
offence under sub-section(1) and sentenced for a period exceeding six
years can contest an election even while serving the sentence of
imprisonment because his or her disqualification ceases to operate at the
expiry of six years. This is in contrast to those found guilty of committing
offences under Sections 8(2) and 8(3), who may be disqualified for a much
longer period than those disqualified under Section 8(1), even though the
offences under the ambit of Sections 8(2) and 8(3) are considered less
grave than those mentioned in Section 8(1).13
Also, section 8(4) exempts sitting members of Parliament and the State
legislatures from disqualification following conviction under any of the
preceding three sub-sections if they have filed an appeal against their
conviction within three months of the judgment. The exemption will be in
force until the court disposes of the appeal. Moreover, there is no
provision to prevent people charged with serious and heinous crimes like
murder, rape, dacoity, etc. from contesting election, pending their trial
and even getting elected.
Thus, to decriminalize politics, we propose the following reforms to be
implemented:
1. A person, if convicted for any of the cases under section 8 of the
Representation of People Act, should be disqualified from contesting
the election for the period of imprisonment and six months
thereafter.
2. A person charged with any offence specified under section 8(1) of
the Representation of People Act, should be disqualified from
contesting the election for a period of one year from the date the
 charges were framed against him/her by the court in that offence
and unless cleared during that one year period, he/she shall
continue to remain so disqualified till the conclusion of the trial for
that offence.
3. The above proposal should be extended to include the sitting
members of Parliament and State Legislatures as well who will be
required to resign when charged with any offence specified under
section 8(1) of the Representation of People Act.

1. INDEPENDENCE OF THE ELECTION COMMISSION OF

INDIA
The appointment to Election Commission is made by the President on the
basis of recommendation of the Prime Minister. There is no obligation to
consult other parties or independent authorities while making such
recommendation. This gives ample room for the ruling party to choose
someone whose loyalty to it is assured. The controversy over selection of
Navin Chawla who is perceived to be close to Congress has brought the
issue of ruling parties packing the EC with their nominees to the fore.
B.B. Tandon, the erstwhile Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), had written
to the then president, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, suggesting that a national
debate be initiated for amending this provision — for constituting a
collegium to make the appointment of members of the EC in order to
ensure that its members are impartial and independent.14 It is in this
context that the recommendation of former CEC Mr. B.B. Tandon should
be viewed.
This issue of appointment by a neutral committee has been discussed in
the past several times by committees but the recommendations have not
been acted upon for lack of political will. The Committee on Electoral
Reforms under the chairmanship of the Law Minister, Mr. Dinesh
Goswami15 in 1990 had recommended that,
• the CEC should be appointed on the recommendation of a body
consisting of the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok
Sabha, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, the Speaker of
the Lok Sabha and the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha
• the appointment of the other Election Commissioners should be
made by the committee in consultation with the Chief Election
Commissioner
• on expiry of the term of office, the Chief Election Commissioner and
the Election Commissioners should be ineligible for any appointment
under the Government, including the post of Governor
It may be recollected that even for a minor peccadillo of praising the CM
in a social function in a state, a senior police officer was ordered by the
election commission to be shifted on the ground that he cannot be
impartial in his actions. This action of Election Commission was
presumably intended to demonstrate to the people that the officers
overseeing the electoral work are both to be completely free from any
prejudice and seen so.
We must bear in mind that the whole democratic set up stands on the
tripod of fairness, transparency and total impartiality of the members of
the Election Commission and its officers. There should be no doubt in the
minds of the people about the fairness of the electoral process and the
unbiased nature of the persons conducting the elections. Any weakening
of the faith in this body would do irreparable damage to the democratic
fabric of the country.
 1. TOWARDS A MORE PARTICIPATIVE DEMOCRACY
Voter turnout is an important metric to evaluate the extent of percolation
of democratic ideals in a society. Low voter participation indicates
indifference to the outcome of the election process. Such indifference may
be due to a sense of disillusionment with the democratic systems of a
country amongst the populace and/or a lack of understanding of the
importance of each vote.
India
World

In either case a low voter participation does not augur well for a country
that aspires to be a flourishing democracy. Rise in literacy and income
levels over the past half century in India have not seen a commensurate
increase in voter turnout. In fact voter turnout in urban areas has been
lower than that in rural India. The global survey for voter turnout
conducted by the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)
places India at the 105th position.16 The figure here shows that voter
turnout (as a percentage of registered voters) in India’s general elections
has remained in 65% to 55% range. If we do not act to ensure that voter
turnout breaks out of this range we can expect urban voter turnout to
worsen. With increasing income and FIGURE 1: VOTES POLLED AS A
educational levels India’s rural electorate PERCENTAGE OF REGISTERED VOTERS
may follow the example of its urban
counterpart.
In the process of formulating the proposal we are about to present we
considered and discarded the following models:
1. Government providing positive incentives: For an incentive to be
effective its monetary worth to the voter should be in proportion to
his income. Such an incentive is regressive. Also it may send out the
message that the Government deems value of a person’s vote to be
tied to his income.
2. Government creating negative incentives: We feel that ideals,
democratic or otherwise should be cultivated in society, not
imposed on it. Also IDEA’s global survey has found that countries
with compulsory voting laws have fared only marginally better than
others.17
Also, Government machinery is already under huge stress during the
election process. The solution we propose involves NGOs and industry. It
involves incentivizing the private sector to deploy its resources towards
increasing voter turnout through awareness campaigns. We propose that
the Election Commission of India invite tenders from NGO-industry
alliances (formed explicitly for this purpose) with the objective to increase
voter turnout through marketing campaigns that increase voter
awareness. Tying the compensation of the winning bidders to the
percentage increase in voter turnout over the previous elections would
ensure that the initiate is effective. The tender process could be
conducted at constituency level to ensure that the campaigns are tailored
to the population of that constituency.
 1. ONE CANDIDATE ONE CONSTITUENCY
Sub-Section (7) of Section 33 of the Representation of the People Act,
1951,18 states that a person can contest a general election or a group of
bye-elections or biennial elections from a maximum of two constituencies.
There have been several cases where a person contests election from two
constituencies, and wins from both. In such a situation he vacates the
seat in one of the two constituencies. A candidate contests from two
constituencies when he is unsure of his win in one of them and would like
to increase his chances of winning by contesting in both of them. But
ultimately he will have to represent only one of the constituencies.
The consequence is that a bye-election would be required from one
constituency involving avoidable labour and expenditure on the conduct
of that bye-election. The current law has to be amended in order to
discourage and preferably, do away with the option of candidates
contesting from two constituencies.
Consider the case of the recent general elections in India. Bye – elections
had to be conducted for 20 Assembly Constituencies (3.63%) in august
200919 as a part of the assembly elections in 2009. The total expenditure
budgeted for the elections for all the 543 constituencies was 1120
crores.20 One would expect the opportunity cost of declaring a non-
working day for the conduct of elections to be much larger than this direct
expenditure. A bye-election would thus imply much higher economic cost
than the budgeted expenditure of 3.63% of 1120 crores i.e. 40.65 crores.
In order to avoid such circumstances of bye-elections and thereby reduce
unnecessary election expenditure and disruption of daily life of the
populace, we suggest the following reforms:
1. The Representation of the People Act, 1951 should be amended to
ensure that no candidate contests from more than one constituency
at a point of time in whichever election he contests, whether it is for
assembly or for the parliament.
2. In case the legislature is of the view that the provision facilitating
contesting from two constituencies as existing at present is to be
retained, then there should be a provision in the law mandating
candidates wishing to contest from two elections to deposit an
appropriate amount of money towards the expenditure for holding
the bye-election. The amount could be Rs.10, 00,000/- for State
Assembly and Council election and Rs.20, 00,000/- for election to
the Lok Sabha.
 1. INTERNAL DEMOCRACY IN POLITICAL PARTIES
Power in a democracy is exercised through political parties. Ironically, in
India, none of the major political parties employ democratic processes in
their internal functioning. Cases such as that of the rise of Adolf Hitler in
Weimar Germany show that even democracies can throw up dictators.
Also, the nepotistic and oligarchic tendencies evident in the decision
making processes of Indian political parties have spilled over in to Indian
polity at large. The reform of political parties by mandating them to align
their internal processes along democratic lines is necessary to arrest this
alarming trend.
Internal democracy could be employed by political parties in key areas
such as the selection of candidates, selection of party leaders and the
building of election manifestos. Some of the benevolent aspects of such a
reform are:
• Rise of political leaders with a genuine understanding and
appreciation the workings of a democracy. In the words of Prathap
Bhanu Mehta21 – “Political leaders used to accepting the discipline
and sanctity of democratic procedures within their own parties are
also less likely to circumvent democracy when in government.”
• Curtailment of nepotism and the use of money power in gaining
‘party tickets’
• Broadening of the social base of political parties beyond caste,
region and religion
• Greater connect between the leadership of the party and its cadre
• Increased attractiveness of political participation amongst the
masses
• Greater transparency in the internal workings of political parties
• Decrease in fragmentation of political parties
There have been scattered instances of political parties’ voluntarily
embracing internal democracy. The conduct of internal elections by the
Lok Satta to chose its electoral candidates and the indications of Indian
Youth Congress moving towards internal elections are welcome
developments.22 23 However as evidenced by the experiences of the British
Labour Party, the process could take decades. The Election Commission
should be empowered to play a catalytic role by making recognition and
registration of political parties contingent upon them adopting and
maintaining certain basic levels of internal democracy.
A proposal such as this would necessitate the amendment of
Representation of the People Act, 1951, and hence be dependent upon
the existence of strong political will.
 1. UNIQUE IDENTIFICATION PROJECT - THE ROAD AHEAD
The recently launched Unique Identification Project aims to provide every
Indian citizen with a biometric identity number which would act as a
complete identification proof across all government agencies.
The UID can completely eliminate the hassles related to electoral rolls.
With the implementation of the UID, all the relevant data about a citizen
will be stored in a single database. As a result electoral rolls need not be
updated before every election as is happening currently. A citizen would
become eligible to vote from his respective constituency as soon as
he/she turns 18 years of age. It would become much easier for the
migrant population to update their electoral data. There would also be no
duplication in electoral rolls across constituencies.
With the implementation of the UID, the income and legal details of every
citizen in the nation can be linked to the UID. Currently, the assets and
criminal background of election candidates are available in the public
domain. The UID project would facilitate easy verification of such
declarations and make the entire process much more credible and
transparent.
The UID project can also be harnessed to address the problem of illegal
immigrants becoming enfranchised. Immigrant population, who can
register as voters without any roadblocks, has increased substantially in
many districts in India thus benefiting pro-illegal immigrant parties.24 It
would be much more difficult for immigrants to become UID holders and
thus register as voters, compared to the current existing system of the
voters ID card.
The next step in the electoral system after the implementation of UIDs is
that of electronic voting kiosks (EVK). These would be portable machines
which would be connected to the central UID database. EVKs would allow
citizens to vote from any part of the country for their own constituency.
This could also eliminate the problem of bogus voting as there would be
biometric checks in place. EVKs, unlike EVMs would also ensure that a
vote is registered on the central server once cast, hence eliminating the
possible loss due to physical damage/capturing of EVKs.
EVKs would be a great benefit for the migrant population in the nation as
they wouldn’t have to change their registered constituency every time
they change their residence. This also opens up an avenue whereby the
large NRI population of the nation can take part in the election process.
Currently, there is no provision by which NRIs can take part in the election
as they are not termed as ‘ordinarily resident’ as per the RPA. 25 The
population of NRIs who are thus deprived of their right to vote is
estimated to be around 20 million.
The UID project holds a lot of promises. Once implemented it has the
potential to revolutionize India’s electoral systems.
ROLE OF INDUSTRY, NGOS AND CIVIL SOCIETY
ORGANIZATIONS
It is to be expected that progressive policy proposals of any kind would
face resistance from those the policy aims to reform. This acts as an
impediment to the enactment of reformative proposals. In the case of
electoral reforms this problem is magnified manifold, for laws enacting
electoral reforms seek to reform the law makers themselves. There have
been instances in the past where the politicians across the spectrum
came together to oppose and subvert progressive rulings of the Supreme
Court of India (SCI).26
One has to see the importance of the role played by NGOs, industry and
civil society in the light of the above argument. It is impractical to expect
the political community to voluntarily reform the electoral process.
Pressure has to be applied from the ground-up through grass roots level
mobilization. NGOs and civil society organizations are best placed to apply
such pressure by rallying support, by airing the views, opinions and
complaints from society at large and by formulating them in to a concrete,
actionable agenda.
Things have improved for the better over the last decade. NGOs such as
the Association of Democratic Reforms have been able to garner more
media coverage and their petitions and pleas now elicit responses from
the political establishment.27 There have been successes as well. The
ruling of the Chief Information Commission to bring the income tax
returns of political parties in to the public domain28 and that of the SCI to
make disclosure of educational qualifications, criminal antecedents and
personal assets of candidates mandatory are two such cases. The
developments in this area over the last decade underline the importance
of NGOs and Civil Society in bringing about electoral reforms.
The industry on the other hand has not been as active in pushing for
reform. The ‘Jaago Re’ campaign of Tata Tea is an exception. 29 In spite of
criticism from various quarters that the ‘Jaago Re’ campaign is more of a
product marketing stunt, one cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that Tata
Tea’s marketing campaign has had the positive externality of increasing
voter awareness. The industry has mostly steered clear of voicing political
dissent in post-independence India and campaigns such as ‘Jaago Re’ are
a welcome break from tradition given that Indian business is going from
strength to strength and is becoming resource rich. In our agenda point
‘Towards a more participative democracy’ we have outlined how
industry’s resources could be harnessed to increase voter turn outs.
The source of the bargaining power of NGOs comes from their reach. The
people of India have to back these organizations in their struggle for
electoral reforms. The words of Felix Frankfurter best express the
importance of civic participation –"No office in the land is more important
than that of being a citizen."
REFRENCES
1 http://www.columbia.edu/~wa38/consoc.pdf
2 http://www.adrindia.org/media/insight.pdf
3 http://www.elections.org.za/papers/398/2009%20National%20elections
%20timetable.pdf
4 http://eci.nic.in/Analysis/
5 http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/counting/hor_count.htm
6 http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090417/edit.htm#2
7http://www.wadanatodo.net/reports/download/250608/The%20People's
%20Verdict_4th%20Civil%20Society%20Review%20of%20the%20NCMP.pdf
8 http://india.gov.in/govt/documents/amendment/amend91.pdf
9 http://www.thehindu.com/2005/02/18/stories/2005021802021000.htm
10 http://lawmin.nic.in/ncrwc/finalreport/v1ch4.htm
11 http://eci.nic.in/PROPOSED_ELECTORAL_REFORMS.pdf
12 http://www.adrindia.org/ls2009/report_2009.pdf
13 http://www.thehindu.com/fline/fl1826/18260870.htm
14 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-way-of-the-ec/211575/
15 http://mpa.nic.in/Ar98-99/append11.htm
16 http://www.idea.int/index.cfm
17 http://www.idea.int/vt/survey/voter_turnout8.cfm
18 Representation of People Act, 1951
http://lawmin.nic.in/legislative/election/volume%201/representation%20of
%20the%20people%20act,%201951.pdf
19 PRESS NOTE – Election Commission of India, No. ECI/PN/ 43/2009 Dated:
17th August, 2009. http://eci.nic.in/press/current/43pn170809.pdf
20 Interim budget, Feb 2009,
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4138129.cms
21 http://www.india-seminar.com/2001/497/497%20pratap%20bhanu
%20mehta.htm
22 http://www.thehindu.com/2009/03/16/stories/2009031659810400.htm
23 http://ibnlive.in.com/news/no-internal-democracy-in-political-parties-rahul
gandhi/62243-37.html?from=search-relatedstories
24 Sadiq, K. , 2005-03-05 "Citizenship from Below: The Challenge of Muslim
Illegal Immigrants to National Sovereignty in India"
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p69434_index.html
25 Representation of the People Act (RPA)-1950, Section 19 and 20
26 http://www.liberalsindia.com/freedomfirst/ff454-01.html
27 Interview with Prof. Trilochan Shastry, ADR
28 http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/05/24/stories/20080524501409
00.htm
29 http://www.jaagore.com/