India is world’s largest democracy and it is not just largest but hug and unprecedented experiment world ever seen. India’s population only comparable to nondemocratic China, Democratic USA stand at a distant 3rd place with 1/4th of the Indian population, so Indian democracy can’t copy concept from other countries and need own ways ahead. Overall Indian democracy performed much better than British or western world expectation set at the time of Indian Independence. Pakistan and India started the journey together on the path of democracy but Pakistan failed miserably on this experiment whereas India except emergency era continued the journey on the path of strengthening democracy. Even people fight to restore democracy in emergency era shown Indian public deep faith on Democratic systems.
Elections are the important part of the democratic process and India scores high on the free and fair election but chances of improvement are always there. Ministry of Law & Justice in January 2013, requested Law commission to consider the issue of electoral reforms in its entirety and suggest comprehensive measures for changes in the law. Commission on 12th March 2015 submitted detail report of 201-Pages on Electoral Reforms, proposing wide-ranging reforms on the variety of issues such as election finance, candidate expenditure limits, disclosure obligations, penalties and state funding of elections. The report was prepared after due consideration and deliberations with stakeholders, including political parties and extensive and in-depth analysis of various issues.
Visit for the summary of commission report of http://netindian.in/news/2015/03/12/00032974/law-commission-submits-report-electoral-reforms-proposes-wide-ranging-chang
The commission suggested few good points but in some areas lacked objectivity, below I tried to touch each point suggested by the commission and analyze considering practical realities and size of Indian democracy.
Independent Candidates
This is most important and good recommendation by Commission, to disbar independent candidates from contesting elections. All past election shows, how the provision of allowing independent candidate is misused and impact overall outcome of the election. In 2014 LS total 3235 independent candidate contested and only 3 candidates able to win, 9 was on 2nd and 20 at a 3rd position; means 99% Independent candidates come into the category of “not serious contender”. Independent candidates add confusion to overall electoral process and even cost for exchequer by increasing number of EVM required & maintains of records.
Only disbarring independent candidates will not be an effective solution unless we curb political parties from contesting elections. In India registration of political party is very easy and hence used as the loophole for impacting electoral process. In 2014 LS total 464 parties contested and only 35 able to win at least one seat, 391 parties were such that forget about winning, their candidates were not even in top 3 in any of 543 LS seats. 185 parties field just 1 candidate each and able to win 3 seats out of contested 185, 6 on 2nd & 4 on 3rd position; 83 parties field 2 candidates each and able to win just 2 seats out of contested 166, 5 on 2nd & 5 on 3rd position. Even though Independents & dummy parties don’t win the election but these candidate impact result of seats in multi-corner fights or low margin wins. Independents and parties with 1 or 2 candidate capture 2.4 Cr total vote which is 4th largest in the nation.
Above table shows how the number of parties contesting election are growing continuously so with independents, even need some restriction on political parties for contesting the election. Few measures can be implemented such as registration at least 5yr old before the party can contest election or only state-recognized parties can contest Lok Sabha and parties with Minimum 5% votes in local body elections can contest state election and other criteria can be included so that only serious parties and candidate contest election.
Election Finance
The commission focused more on transparency rather than providing the practical approach to parties and candidate for raising funding and legal means to meet increasing election expenses. Impractical restriction always lead to either finding loopholes or using illegal means. In parliament election with constituency size of average 15.33 lakh voter (exceptions like Malkajgiri in Telangana 32 lakh voter), it’s hard to manage candidate expenditure within the limit of just 70 lakh, which translate 2.20 to 4.55 Rs per voter, at this rate candidate can’t even send a postcard to the voter. Out of 543, only 8 constituencies have less than 5lakh voter means most candidate gets less than 14 Rs per voter as election expense and this lead to using illegal means or understate of expenses. On election finance most important reform will increase candidate expanse limit 50 to 100 Rs per voter and year on year increase of 10%(Or linked with inflation index), for transparency make it mandatory to announce resources of expenses.
Anti-Defection Law
The commission recommended instead of the speaker, President or Governor action on the advice of ECI in case of disqualification on the ground of defection. If accepted this will be a good move as the speaker is always from ruling party and hence decisions are based on party lines, Latest Bihar events are the best example to understand how decisions are twisted by the speaker. We can expect more balance decisions from President and Governor as those are the constitutional post.
Election Petitions
The commission suggested few very good mechanisms for expediting Election Petitions like the daily trial, Minimizing adjournments, a time limit of 45 days to file a written statement, conclude the trial within six months etc. All recommendations are good and government can accept those but judiciary role will be important as in past judiciary rejected PM Narendra Modi proposal of fast-tracking cases against elected representatives.
Totaliser for Counting of Votes
Commission endorsed ECI’s suggestion for introducing a totalizer for counting of votes to prevent harassment of voters in areas where voting trends in each polling station can be determined. Totaliser will be good implementation as it will harm vote bank politics as parties will not come to know which areas voter voted to which candidate but this will even impact political parties’ poll preparation as without knowing areas of weakness and strength, it will be hard to prepare and utilize organization strength.
Proportional representation
The commission suggested examining the possibility of Proportional representation to bring more representative, while the current FPTP (First Past The Post) system brings stability. At this juncture country need stability, anyway with the multiparty system and independent candidates allowed to contest, we don’t have the problem of representation to all section. PR with party list method can be worth trying as this will discourage individual based parties and pre-poll alliances.
Restriction on Government Sponsored Advertisements & Number of Seats from which a Candidate May Contest
Commission suggestion on both these issues are cosmetic and irrelevant; restriction on Government advertisement in last 6 month is a good step but keeps loophole of permission for advertisement of poverty alleviation programs so this restriction will become just yet another provision. A candidate contesting multiple seats is not a big issue as in every election only 1-2 candidate contest from multiple seats and even win. Like in 2014 LS only 2 candidates able to win from both seat. So overall any such restriction will not make a big impact one or other way.
Compulsory Voting; Right to Recall; NOTA and Right to Reject
Commission rejected the proposal of compulsory voting on basis of the practicality of implementation and Right to recall, Right to reject on basis of future chaos. We are running world’s largest democracy so before recommending or experimenting policies, we need to think about implications and practicality of implementations. We will need to find out ways to increase voting percentage rather than legally making voting compulsory and adding punishment provisions. Right to recall & right to reject both are theoretically fancy but practically harmful provisions, worldwide no democracy implemented these on large scale, not even in countries with Small population size, India with 85 Cr voters will need to find out better mechanisms for improving productivity of representatives rather than adding provisions which can lead to instability.
Use of Common Electoral Rolls
Commission recommended common electoral rolls for Parliamentary, Assembly and local body elections. Good suggestion as this will lead to uniformity in reducing cost and avoidance of mismanagement which causes because of handling of same data at multiple levels.
Regulation of Political Parties and Inner Party Democracy
Even though commission suggested some cosmetic changes in the law but no point in discussing these recommendations, as the issue is not of legal provision but overall our political system not ready for these implementations. In all political parties, party heads get elected unopposed even after legal provisions, this means our party system needs more maturity before we push inner party democracy through law changes.
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