many pitfalls in the electoral process stylised rise of a developed India

Many pitfalls in our electoral process stymied rise of a developed India

 

 After being in British heritage for nearly 10 decades, India has evolved from provincial autonomy into a union of states.Though this transformation did not happen overnight. It was the fruit of the consistent demand for constituent assembly and poorna swaraj by our freedom fighters. And finally, on 26th November, 1949, India became sovereign, socialist, democratic and republic.

 Democracy means that India shall have an elected representative. Where citizens can choose their representatives by casting vote from their constituency and the chosen candidate will be held responsibe of making decisions on citizen's behalf. Thus democracy is said to be of the people, for the people, and by the people. 

Adult franchise suffrage is a powerful tool to ensure democracy. It can change the nature of governance after every five years.  Candidates contesting elections need to be inclined towards public's demand. Ideally, an elected representative is responsible to frame policies and legislations to fulfill common man's aspirations. However, there are many pitfalls in the electoral process which leaves the system directionless and obscure. Elections in India has many loopholes-- filing of nomination, funding, advertisement, autonomy of electoral institutions, public service authorities, voter's behavior and many more. 

India is a developing nation. Although it's economy is growing, poverty is still a major challenge. It made an entry in the world's fastest poverty reducing country but only until the arrival of covid pandemic. The pandemic struck India when it recorded its lowest economic growth in over a decade.

Pew Research Center, using World Bank data, has estimated that the number of poor in India (with income of $2 per day or less in purchasing power parity) has more than doubled to 134 million from 60 million in just a year due to the pandemic-induced recession. All the progress in poverty reduction for past 45 years has stalled. Amid this scenario there has to be representation from the poor and marginalised sections.

 Having said that, there were 479 crorepatis MPs in 2019 lok sabha. Despite having the limitation on election expenditure(77 lakh- as set by the recent government), crores of money were spent while campaigning in West Bengal, tamil nadu and assam elections that were held recently. The question arising here is, should political parties spent so much money on campaigns, rallies and advertisements? Thus setting limit on election expenditure provides a level playing field?

Unfortunately it does not. It further widens the gap between rich and poor candidates. Rather there should be clearly defined laws which can ensure transparency in asset as well as revenue return declaration. 

Political parties contesting elections are mostly funded by corporates and powerful businessmen. These fundings can be obtained through electoral bonds. However, there have been many issues in this regard. These bonds prohibit the disclosure of the funders name. Thereby ensuring anonymity and bringing secrecy to the whole process of funding. Most of these bonds purchased since 2018 have been denominated in 10 lakh and 1 crore. Earlier companies can donate only 7.5% of its profit in last three years but now it can donate even 100% of its profit. This is giving rise to crony capitalism. It can also give way for the generation of black money as any shell company is now eligible for donation under electoral bond scheme. 

Thus electoral bond make electoral funding even more opaque. It gives a legal channel for companies to round-trip their tax haven cash to a political party. All this will give new height to corruption and hinder development. As the National commission on review of working of Constitution under venkatacharya had told that -- the high cost of election creates high degree of compulsion for corruption to take place in the public arena. Therefore, it is essential that all parties should receive donations only by cheque, or other modes of money transfer. The details of all the donations received should be submitted with the election commissioner. To overcome loophole in funding, Indrajeet Gupta committee in 1998, recommended that state should fund the elections. Also, former chief election commissioner has suggested national electoral fund as an alternative worth exploring. Where the funds allocated to political parties shall be in proportion to their vote shares.

 Apart from funding, entry of criminals in politics is yet another pitfall. In 2019, as many as 43% MPs had criminal cases pending against them. In a recent judgement on criminalization of politics, supreme court has asked the political parties to give a reason for giving tickets to candidate with criminal charges. If the party fails to explain so then it will have to face contempt of court's order. 

However several such laws and judgements have not helped much. One reason is lack of enforcement of laws and judgements. Thus, politics in India continues to be a game of muscle and power. Whether or not political parties will bring more clean candidates in future is unpredictable. 

On that point, parliament has given a remedy under representation of people's act(RPA), 1951, which provides for the actual conduct of elections in India. It deals with qualification and disqualification of members of both the houses of parliament and state legislative assemblies and legislative councils. But the provisions have very narrow interpretation. Thus, RPA should be amended to include all the items in affidavit and making false declaration in connection with election to be an offence. The security deposit for candidates contesting elections is also not much(Rs 10,000 for lok sabha and rs 5000 for state assemblies). Given the fact that many non serious candidates file nomination only with an intention to disrupt the electoral process. This will bring unnecessary expenditure, stress , difficulty in maintaining law and order, more ballot machines etc. A candidate is also allowed to contest from more than one seats. In many cases, candidates win both, he selects any one and the need arises for by election leading to unnecessary expenditure.

EC has proposed that candidate should contest from only one constituency and if not then candidates should deposit from rs 500000 to 1000000 to bear bye election expenditure. Therefore, the security deposit has to be increased to discourage non serious candidates. 

One way of ensuring free and fair elections is by strengthening constitutional bodies like election commission of India. Article 324 of the indian constitution provides for an independent election commission. Hitherto, the commission has taken action against politicians on several occasions-- ECI cancelled election to vellore parliamentary constituency in Tamil Nadu after large unaccounted cash was unearthed during income tax raid in 2019; ensured credibility of voting-- no mismatch between VVPAT slip and EVM count; voter education and participation through SVEEP etc. But  for the past few years its role has not been very promising. There were allegations of partisan role from the opposition-- instances of favoring the ruling party by giving clean chit to the model code violations. Bound by the laws made by the parliament, EC also lacks the capacity to take it's own call. For example, despite being the registering authority for political parties under section 29  A of RPA, 1951, it has no power to deregister them for violations. Similarly, it has no role in enforcing inner party democracy and regulation of party finances.

In the changing nature of electoral process, reforms in ECI becomes crucial. In its 225th report, law commission had recommended a collegium of pm, leader of opposition, cji for the appointment of EC. Besides it has also suggested to provide constitutional protection to all three election commissioner instead of just one at present.

Bureaucratization of politics is also seen in the current arena. The parties can manage to get the officers in their favour to be the electoral officers in their constituencies. Though sufficient measures have been taken by the constitution to make the ec an independent body, it still needs an independent secretariat. As it is currently dependent on department of personnel training, law ministry and home mjnistry for financial matters. The expenses of the Election Commission should be charged on the Consolidated Fund of India to secure its independent functioning.

Despite several efforts and committee's recommendations, it is difficult to achieve a full proof electoral process. All It requires is high vigilance from judiciary, press and citizens of India. Citizens have a central role in a democracy. Because we the people, having certain goals and aspirations, are going to chose our representatives. Therefore it is important that our goals have the vision of a developed country.

 Since the First lok sabha elections in 1951, our country continues to struggle in ensuring basic amenities to all its citizens. As we have seen, poverty rate is at all times high in last 45 years which means we still have poor people at our priority. As per a NABARD study, 83% farmers have less than 1 hectares of land. The number of farmers committing suicide has been increasing year after year. Besides farmers, poverty in India also comprises of the plight faced by  migrant workers. As per 2011 census , there are 45 crore internal migrants. Majority of these migrants belong to uttar pradesh and bihar. Their vote turnout during elections is 67% nationally. Yet they are the most miserable. Shutting down of industries, restaurants, businesses and market amid covid-19 pandemic induced recession, have left them out of job.  Even MGNREGA is unable to absorb them. Unfortunately they have to cut their spending on food. This is going to impact their health and nutrition intake and further reduce India's ranking in global hunger index. 

Considering right to food as a fundamental right under article 21, supreme court has asked all the states to implement the one nation one ration scheme and to run community kitchen for the migrants. All this crisis persists in India because of short sighted vision of the governments as well as the citizens. The mismanagement of the pandemic( shortage of oxygen cylinders, beds, ventilators, medicines and no proper data on the deaths caused due to covid, no proper safety protocols followed by leaders while campaigning during elections etc) and the abrupt lockdown reveals the carelessness from the government's side. Not adequate attention been given to the infrastructure and economy as all the energy and money was being drained towards winning state elections. Thus keeping the vision of developed india on the back foot.