DEAR PRIME MINISTER,Reforming the Indian Election System

Report done in partial fulfilment ofBUSINESS 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 SUMMARYIndian 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 CHALLENGESIndia 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’.i

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. ii 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. iii 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 ADOPTEDThe 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.

TABLE 1: VOTING PATTERNS IN DUMKA AND BUXAR

1. PREFERENTIAL VOTINGCurrent 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 the votes polled.

Constit-uency

Votes in favor of winner

Total Votes polled

Percentage of votes polled against winning candidate

Dumka 208518 622012 66.48%

Buxar 132614 623615 78.73%

Table 1iv shows two example of the situation described above in the recent general elections. In both the cases the winning candidate was not preferred 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’.v

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 SPENDINGThe 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.vi

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

o Total value of funds and gifts receivedo The total value of expenses incurredo 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 ruleso Issue an initial warning in case of first offenceo Issue a final warning in case of second offenceo Cancel the recognition of the party for a year in case of 3rd offenceo 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.

3. 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.vii

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

4. CURBING POLITICS OF DEFECTIONThe 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.viii 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.ix 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 NCRWCx (2002) and the Election Commission of Indiaxi (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.

5. DECRIMINALIZATION OF INDIAN POLITICSCriminalization 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.xii 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).xiii

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.

6. INDEPENDENCE OF THE ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIAThe 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.xiv 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 Goswamixv 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.

FIGURE 1: VOTES POLLED AS A PERCENTAGE OF REGISTERED VOTERS

IndiaWorld

7. TOWARDS A MORE PARTICIPATIVE DEMOCRACYVoter 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.

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.xvi 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 educational levels India’s rural electorate 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.xvii

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.

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8. ONE CANDIDATE ONE CONSTITUENCYSub-Section (7) of Section 33 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, xviii 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 2009xix as a part of the assembly elections in 2009. The total expenditure budgeted for the elections for all the 543 constituencies was 1120 crores.xx 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.

9. INTERNAL DEMOCRACY IN POLITICAL PARTIESPower 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 Mehtaxxi – “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.xxii xxiii 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.

10. 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.xxiv 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.xxv 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 ORGANIZATIONSIt 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).xxvi

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.xxvii 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 domainxxviii 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.xxix 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

i http://www.columbia.edu/~wa38/consoc.pdfii http://www.adrindia.org/media/insight.pdfiii http://www.elections.org.za/papers/398/2009%20National%20elections%20timetable.pdfiv http://eci.nic.in/Analysis/v http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/counting/hor_count.htmvi http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090417/edit.htm#2viihttp://www.wadanatodo.net/reports/download/250608/The%20People's%20Verdict_4th%20Civil%20Society%20Review%20of%20the%20NCMP.pdfviii http://india.gov.in/govt/documents/amendment/amend91.pdfix http://www.thehindu.com/2005/02/18/stories/2005021802021000.htmx http://lawmin.nic.in/ncrwc/finalreport/v1ch4.htmxi http://eci.nic.in/PROPOSED_ELECTORAL_REFORMS.pdfxii http://www.adrindia.org/ls2009/report_2009.pdfxiii http://www.thehindu.com/fline/fl1826/18260870.htmxiv http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-way-of-the-ec/211575/xv http://mpa.nic.in/Ar98-99/append11.htmxvi http://www.idea.int/index.cfmxvii http://www.idea.int/vt/survey/voter_turnout8.cfmxviii Representation of People Act, 1951 http://lawmin.nic.in/legislative/election/volume%201/representation%20of%20the%20people%20act,%201951.pdfxix PRESS NOTE – Election Commission of India, No. ECI/PN/ 43/2009 Dated: 17th August, 2009. http://eci.nic.in/press/current/43pn170809.pdfxx Interim budget, Feb 2009, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4138129.cmsxxi http://www.india-seminar.com/2001/497/497%20pratap%20bhanu%20mehta.htmxxii http://www.thehindu.com/2009/03/16/stories/2009031659810400.htmxxiii http://ibnlive.in.com/news/no-internal-democracy-in-political-parties-rahul gandhi/62243-37.html?from=search-relatedstoriesxxiv 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.htmlxxv Representation of the People Act (RPA)-1950, Section 19 and 20xxvi http://www.liberalsindia.com/freedomfirst/ff454-01.htmlxxvii Interview with Prof. Trilochan Shastry, ADRxxviii http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/05/24/stories/2008052450140900.htmxxix http://www.jaagore.com/