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Indian Electoral Reforms
Indian Electoral Reforms
Indian Electoral Reforms
MINISTER,
Reforming the Indian Election System
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/