ELECTIONS-THE DANCE OF DEMOCRACY OR...

P M Ravindran, raviforjustice@gmail.com

It’s another election season in the country. I have heard it being described as the dance of
democracy. But the reality is far from it. Way back in 2002, in an unpublished article
‘Democracy? East is East and West is West…’ I had written:
Out, party-based democracy; In, real democracy. It is a fact that party-based
democracy itself has failed in this country. So will the Presidential system, as in the
US of A, work in our context? No guarantee, there. But can’t we think afresh, keeping
in mind the lessons we have learnt from our own experiences in the past fifty years?
Shouldn’t we tailor our solutions to suit our problems? Here is one suggestion: Our
government should function at three levels. Villages should form the units of
administration. Villages should be linked through computer networks to the next
level of governance, that is the State. States should be linked to the government at
the Center. Polls should be conducted to elect representatives to an Electoral College
(EC). These representatives, Members of Electoral College (MEC), can be one per 500
or 1000 of the population, but should necessarily be one amoung them. MECs from
the village will function as the Village Panchayat (VP). The VP will send a
representative from amoung them to the State Legislature (SL) on need basis. This
need will be decided by the agenda before the Legislature and the competence of the
MEC to address the issues in the agenda. The agenda, of course, will be circulated by
the State Secretariat well in advance so that the issues are discussed thoroughly at
the VP and every VP can send its best spokesperson for the occasion to the SL. A
similar exercise can follow for issues at the national level taken up for consideration
in the Parliament. Of necessity, the discussions should start at the VP, ensuring the
best democratic process at work always. And there shall never be defections and
toppling of governments for the five years for which each Electoral College shall
function!

(You may read the full article at

http://suchnaexpress.blogspot.com/2011/01/democracyeast-is-east-and-west-is-
west.html)

Utopian? Or just mere flights of fancy? You are free to decide. Except for the change that
necessarily will have to be painful, I am sure it is workable.

That our electoral processes is riddled with problems is a fact that none can deny. But more
than the problems at the execution level, which we shall touch upon later, there are grossly
illogical and wayward policies that dominate our electoral process. We can call them
genetic defects.

A Whatsapp message, attributed to Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, begins with the
observation ‘while even under trials in prison cannot vote, convicts in prison can contest
elections’. And in our context conviction implies the ultimate conviction by the apex court,
which can take as much as the life of one generation. Even then the law is explicit that even
those convicted, with less than 2 years imprisonment as punishment, can stake claims to be
a law maker! As if there is dearth of citizens with unblemished records.

The next obvious defect is the lack of any prescribed qualifications, qualities or experience
for being a law maker. A question of providing equal opportunity? Please do not make me
cry at a joke.

Another defect is the questionable provision for a candidate to contest from more than one
constituency at a time. Is there any need to elaborate on the absurdity of this?

A related issue is of candidates being thrust on constituencies where they are not ordinarily
resident. This is obviously a basic flaw with party based democracy whereby the candidates
who win remain beholden to party leadership and not to the ones who elected them. There
is no reason why one amongst the residents of a constituency cannot be put up to
represent them. It should be made legally mandatory for a candidate to be a resident of the
constituency from where he is contesting elections. The period of residence should be at
least 5 years for state assemblies and 10 years for the Parliament. (All these are short term
changes with the long term change being the one advocated at the beginning itself.)

The next objectionable issue is the back door entry of politicians into the Parliament. I mean
politicians, failed or about to be written off, taking the Rajya Sabha route to Parliament. The
Upper House is actually conceived as a body of specialists, professionals and others who
have proved their worth is different spheres of activities and whose expertise would add to
the overall performance of the Parliament. But except film stars and may be a cricketer or
two this body is also seen to be hijacked by politicians.

What to talk of election manifestoes which are not worth the paper they are printed on?
There is an online petition I had initiated demanding that these manifestoes must be legally
binding on the parties presenting them. (The petition is available at
https://www.change.org/p/the-president-probity-in-elections-by-eliminating-frauds-in-
election-manifestoes) The following requirements have been highlighted:

The promises made in the manifesto should be listed priority wise for
implementation. There could be three priorities-must do, should do, could do. While
all promises under must do have to be fulfilled, it could be 90 pc for the should do
and 80 pc for the could do priorities. The phased program of implementation should
also be specified and should not go beyond 5 years. For every percentage short fall
there should be penalties at deterrent rates for the three categories.

The resources required for implementing should be specific.

The means by which the resources will be mobilised should also be specified in
detail.

There should be no freebies for anybody.

Amoung the seemingly proactive changes that have been brought in by the Election
Commission, goaded by the judiciary, is the need to file affidavits by the candidates about
their wealth and that of their relations. Also to be filed are the details about their
convictions in criminal cases and their involvement in ongoing criminal cases.
Unfortunately, this has remained just a scare crow. Firstly, this information is not made
available to the voters to help them make informed choices. An NGO, Association for
Democratic Reforms, has been making valiant efforts in the past to compile some of this
pertinent information and disseminate it but that is almost like the tip of the proverbial
iceberg of information that needs to be disseminated.

In a conclave of judges of the higher judiciary at Bhopal a few years ago, the then Chief
Justice of India had reportedly asked the Chief Election Commissioner what action has ever
been taken on such data and the reply was none. Just to reduce the shock it was added that
the CEC had no resources to scrutinize the voluminous data available and they only look
into complaints made by affected parties!

This time another new mandate has been issued. The candidates have to file their income
tax returns for the last five years. Obviously sitting MPs contesting now may expose how
much their wealth has grown in the last five years. But to what extent this info will be
known to the public and how it will impact their choice remains to be seen.

Strictly speaking, there is no reason why the returning officers should not be made
responsible for compiling and disseminating these information atleast one week before the
date of polling.

While these are policy related shortcomings that need to be taken care of, there are plenty
of defects and deficiencies in the implementing stage.

The updating of electoral rolls is a major area that needs attention. I remember my first
effort to get my name registered in the electoral rolls almost 20 years back. I was bluntly
told that the revision of electoral rolls will take place shortly before the next elections.
Thereafter, just 10 days after I got my Voters I Card, when I went to cast my first vote my
name was in the list of voters removed from the electoral roll! I did complain to the
observer in situ itself and on his advice lodged a written complaint with the District Electoral
Officer who was the District Collector himself. No marks for guessing what happened to that
complaint. Worse, in one case some of those who were in my situation had actually
approached the High Court claiming that their fundamental right as a citizen had been
violated. But the court dismissed that petition with the remarks that even if those
petitioners had voted it would not have affected the results.

The errors in the electoral rolls are also a matter of serious concern. I had had the
opportunity to help out two candidates for the local body elections with the verification of
the electoral rolls. From names to gender, age and address there was not one area where
there were no serious errors. The simplest of examples would be of husbands being shown
as female and wife as male. Non intimation of change of address is a problem of the voter’s
creation.

Incidentally the inimitable Adhaar has not been linked to the Voters’ I Card and electoral
roll. Isn’t it time that this was done and remote voting enabled through electronic means?
Well, that brings us also to another need-to network EVMs on constituency basis so that not
only the results get updated in real time but also the confidentiality of booth wise
preference of the electorate is protected.

As soon as elections were announced on 10 March, the Chief Electoral Officer lost no time
in declaring that he meant business and the Model Code of Conduct would be enforced
strictly. Brave words, indeed; but nothing new, for sure. What happens really on ground?
Here are some facts disclosed under the RTI Act in the context of the General Elections
2014.

Among the information sought was

The details of cases of defacement acted upon by the teams*, in para 4**, since their deployment
till two days prior to the date of providing information. The details should include the date, time,
location, type/nature of defacement, party/candidate involved, action taken by the ADS(like
movable boards removed and deposited at .(location where deposited); defacement of walls
whitewashed etc; removing and whitewashing done by ......@ cost of Rs........; whether payment
made or not, amount raised against party/candidate vide (document reference and date) sent by
courier/regd post (regn number required) on (date), total distance covered, fuel consumed, nature
of fuel.
*Anti Defacement Squads
**pertains to the area of Palakkad Municipality

Now the first response was that the information can be collected after inspecting the
documents on a date that was almost a month away. The first appellate authority ruled that
the delay is acceptable as everybody was busy with election work. He directed the
information to be provided by 15 Jun 2014, that is after a further delay of 45 days.
Accordingly some information was provided 12 Jun 2014. The first appeal filed after
receveing this information was not accepted.

The most important bits of information provided are listed below.

There were 13 Anti Defacement Squads organised in the Lok Sabha Constituency, one each
for the 12 Legislative Assembly Constituencies and one for the District Electoral Officer.
Each squad consisted of a Junior Superindentent level public servant, as head of the squad,
two subordinates, one videographer and a driver with vehicle. The total diesel consumed
between 17/3/14 to 29/3/14 alone was 3,747 liters. The squads had recorded cases of
defacements under 5 headings- wall writing, posters, banners and others. Total number of
such defacement of public property had been 149,333.

Interestingly, such cases in the matter of private property have not been recorded at all.
Though the Model Code of Conduct states unambiguously that ’No political party or
candidate shall permit its or his followers to make use of any individual’s land, building,
compound wall etc., without his permission for erecting flag-staffs, suspending banners,
pasting notices, writing slogans etc.’

Also, though listed, absolutely no cases have been recorded in the matter of misuse of
vehicle, violation of loudspeaker act, illegal meetings/speech etc, inducement/ gratification
to electors /cash, kind distribution. This a far cry from the reality. At least one thing one can
vouch for- there have been many violation of the loudspeaker act because many a vehicle
could be seen plying making announcements though the permission, when given, strictly
prohibits such announcements from moving vehicles.
The most interesting piece of information received was ‘Candidature cost of Anti
Defacement’. The figures are : UDF-110100, LDF-118000, BJP-42100, Welfare Party-1650,
SDPI-2670, BSP-1142, AAP-1050, M P Virendra Kumar (Indep)-2100. Though sought, the
information about recovery of these amounts had not been provided.

Then there was this case of Mr Ramesh Krishna, IAS, assigned as observer to Kollam (Kerala)
who went to Thiruvananthapuram to play golf (as reported in the media here). He was
immediately withdrawn. But seeking information under the RTI Act on what disciplinary
action had been taken against him the Public Information Officer of the CEC dismissed the
media reports as ‘perception‘ and that no further action had been taken against him.

One doesn’t know how many people will be remembering those video reports of Ms Nalini
Singh reporting of booth capturing during elections in Bihar and UP. Maybe those thuggish
crimes have reduced, may not be entirely due to the efforts of the Election Commission or
the public servants involved in conducting the elections. I will credit the social media and
citizens journalists with a major share of the compliments for the visible positive changes.
But there still is along way to go before we can usher in democracy through fair and free
elections.

Before concluding, I must inform the readers here that I have registered a complaint with
the Cheif Electoral Officer of the State (Kerala) about defacing the walls of private property
by the UDF candidate, Mr V K Sreekandan, here. This is just a test case. It is more than 48
hours since I complained and demanded that the posters should be removed from the
compound walls of the plot adjoining my house within 48 hours. The plot belongs to my
children who are out of the state. A compensation of Rs 50,000/- has also been sought for
trespassing into private property, as such defacement is to be viewed. Copy of the
complaint has also been endorsed to the CEC. Shall keep you posted of any furhter
developments.

26 Mar 2019