Dr. K. Veeramani
Independent India commenced its journey as a democratic polity. The Constitution of the country also confirms the identity of democracy. Starting from the first general election held in 1952 to the latest, held in 2019 and recently the elections to the legislative assemblies of a few States, the rulers have been elected by reckoning the votes secured by the candidates. In every electoral constituency, the candidate securing votes individually more than the others are declared as elected, irrespective of the quantum of higher votes secured by the rest jointly. The elected candidate need not secure absolute majority votes in the constituency.
Real Mandate to Reflect:
The democratic polity has to be governed by the due representation of the electorate. The representation is through election by every citizen’s votes. Does the elected representative to govern, reflect the choice of the voters directly? Even by securing less than 50 per cent of the polled votes, there is likely chance for a contestant to get elected by securing numerically more votes than the others individually.
The basic tenet of democratic rule is due representation of people’s majority mandate by securing their votes.
In democracy, the value of every vote has to be respected. But at present there exists possibility for a contestant to get elected despite not having secured a minimum of 50 per cent. Besides, under the prevailing electoral process, the total of all the votes secured by the lost candidates exceeds the 50 per cent of polled votes in a particular constituency.
It results in the assuming of the governance by the representatives who secured less votes sitting in the treasury side and numerically more of the total votes jointly on the opposition side. It is against the tenet of democracy and it does not reflect the real mandate of the electorate. This sort of electoral analysis has been in vogue since 1952, for which the opposition bothered much but the ruling side simply ignored. Whatever be the stand of the political parties that contested the election, the democratic tenet of majority must come to the governance. For a country like ours, with pluralism and diversity in almost all aspects, the ruling of the country cannot be decided by securing the votes marginally higher and sometimes less than the total votes secured by the rest. The only remedy for this malady is the proportional representation of political parties based on the numerical strength of the votes secured by them.
Influence of Money Power
The process becomes more expensive by every successive election. It is very difficult for a poor, service minded person in any political party to contest elections. Even though the Election Commission has fixed a specific ceiling for the election expenses of every contestant, it remains merely in paper that too more in breach than in practice! The actual expenses go beyond that. Apart from that the worst culture is being inculcated to bribe the voters to secure their votes. The poor, ignorant voters have to succumb to money power and have to cast their votes to the bribers, without analysing the ability of the contestant to serve the Constituency. Even the bribe money, seized by the authorities at the time of election campaigning goes scot free after the election is over. Stringent laws have to be enacted to punish the bribers. Once the bribing candidate wins the election, his foremost duty would be to mobilise the money that was given as bribe to the voters. For that he/she would exercise the power and position to recover the disbursed bribe money through corrupt practices.
Instead of individual candidate spending for the election, the election commission has to take the responsibility of spending for the eligible contestants. The erring officials who manage the election affairs have to be punished severely. Mere sermonizing reforms will not serve the purpose. Only stringent punishment would serve the purpose and make the public service free from bribery.
Curbing large scale Corruption:
So far corruption had been prevailing as a secret affair. Now it has been institutionalized in the form of issuing electoral bonds and donating to it. Electoral bond can be purchased, by a person who can donate to any political party which then encashes them in the designated bank branch. The donor does not have to disclose his/her identity while purchasing the bonds and this opens the door for funding through questionable sources, mostly in corporate sector. Companies can buy tax-free bonds and deposit them in the bank account of any political party. This mode of donation is said to replace black money with white in politics. An official reply under Right to Information (RTI) showed that 95 per cent of electoral bonds went to BJP in 2017-18. More than money power muscle power combined with media power worsens the situation.
Electoral bonds are the worst form of mobilising the black money of the big/corporate entities at the cost of revenue loss to the government under IT exemption and under the guise of bringing out the black money.
Corrupt practices held secretly subject to criminal penalisation has been converted openly as an acclaimed civil activity. Electoral bonds would debase the democratic setup by encouraging the political parties to mobilise funds for their electioneering work. The electoral bond issuance must be stopped immediately.
Putting more teeth to anti-defection law
The major flaw in the current electoral exercise is that there is every possibility for the elected to defect the political party that nominated the candidate as contestant. This defection law was inserted by adding X Schedule to the Constitution, effected as per 52nd Amendment in 1985. But the political party which does not win even single constituency and is hungrier for governance has made ineffective the provisions of the anti-defection law by horse trading the entire elected candidates of other parties into their fold. The money power of the politicians enabled, to occupy the ruling throne, circumventing the provisions of anti-defection law. It is the right time to provide more teeth to the anti-defection law so that the defecting legislator would lose their position but would also become ineligible to contest election for a reasonable period. The elected candidate has to be loyal to the party which nominated in the election, and continue as such to the entire tenure as legislator practically, then can start horse-trading!
The above few electoral reforms are only illustrative and not exhaustive. All the reforms cannot be implemented simultaneously. At least igniting the reform process must be started or else the prevailing election will make the democratic polity of the country, highly ridiculous.
