Why we need Electoral Reforms?
India has representative democracy, where people periodically elect their representatives to exercise political power on their behalf. Thus, the conduct of free and fair elections is the prerequisite of success of representative democracy. Therefore, we need reforms in the electoral process to make the election free, fair and repetitive of people’s choice. The electoral reforms are a continuous process. Any improvement and change in the elements of electoral process to make it effective free and fair may be termed as electoral reform. Election reforms in India have largely focused on expanding the electorate with view on larger participation of youth, strengthening the Election Commission by making it multimember body, reducing the number of candidates in the elections, minimizing the role of money and muscle power in elections, ensuring the abuse of government machinery and so on. This has involved introducing reforms at various stages of the election process.
Sources of Electoral Reforms in India
The sources of electoral reforms in India are: the proposals of Election Commission, the reports of Law Commission or other committees, laws of the Parliament and judicial pronouncements.
A. Reforms by the Election Commission of India
Election Commission assumed it new vitality during the tenure of TN Sheshan (1990-96), who gave new orientation to commission within the existing legal framework. The following election reforms were introduced by the Election Commission of India:
1. The Election Commission of India issued a Model Code of Conduct in 1971 which is a set of guidelines regulating political parties and candidates prior to the election and also to ensure free and fair elections. It is operational from the date of announcement of the election schedule till the declaration of results. While the model code of conduct is not legally enforceable, some of its provisions may be enforced by invoking corresponding provisions in other statutes like the Indian Penal Code, 1860; Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973; Representation of Peoples Act, 1951.
2. The Election Commission introduced the use of Electronic Voting Machines in a phased manner between 1998 and 2001. They have been used in all general and state assembly elections since 2004. EVMs have made the electoral process more effective led to check on bogus voting and booth capturing, and saving time, money, staff, involved in the voting and counting process.
3. While there are no limits on the election spending of a political party, yet the Election Commission has put a cap on the expenditure of individual candidate i.e. Rs. 50-70 lakh for Lok Sabha election and Rs. 20-28 lakh for assembly elections. This had some positive impact on the spending by candidates during elections.
4. In 2013, the Election Commission expanded the coverage of postal ballot voting to six categories of voters: special voters, service voters, wives of service and special voters, voters in preventive detention, voters on election duty and notified voters.
5. The Election Commission has prevented the broadcast of exit polls until the final phase of elections are over to check the undue influence on voters.
The Election Commission of India has drafted a documents titled, ‘Proposed Electoral Reforms’ in 2004, which inter alia lays stress on the following points: Need to increase the security deposit; prohibiting the person accused of serious criminal offences from contesting elections; restricting the number of seats from which a person may contest to one; certain restrictions on publishing the results of opinion polls and exit polls; clear provisions to deal with surrogate advertisements; amending the law to include negative voting; compulsory publication of accounts of political parties for general public; advertisement of government achievements should be banned six months prior to elections etc.
However, two of the proposed reforms related to commission itself merit attention: I. Like other constitutional bodies, the expenditure of the Commission should be declared as the expenditure charged upon the Consolidated Fund of India under article 112 of the Constitution. 2. The Commission should be given to frame the regulations under the Representation of People Act, 1950 and 1951. At present, rule-making power is exercised by the government in consultation with the Commission (ECI: 2019).
B. Law Commission Reports and Electoral Reform Committees
The Law commission has been making various useful recommendations for the electoral reforms. In addition, the government has appointed various committees to study and suggest measures for the electoral reforms in India. Some of these recommendations are given below:
1. The Tarkunde/Jayprakash Narayan Committee (1974-1975)
The suggestions of the Committee are: Election Commission to be a three member body; appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner by the President in consultation with a Committee consisting of the Chief Justice of India, Prime Minister and the Leader of Opposition as against only the Prime Minister; government to act as a caretaker government during the election period; financial assistance to political parties by the state; prohibition on donation by companies; regular audit of accounts of candidates and their political parties; reducing the minimum age of voting from 21 to 18 years; placing the radio and television under the control of an independent body; creation of a voters’ council in every constituency to aid in the conduct of free and fair elections. Some of these recommendations have been implemented.
2. The Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms (1990)
The Committee suggested: Time limit for conduct of by-elections; increase in deposits by Independent candidates; restricting the issue of advertisements by the newspapers; legislation for preventing booth-capturing, rigging and intimidating; prohibiting candidates from contesting election from more than one constituency.
3. The Indrajit Gupta Committee on State Funding of Elections (1998)
The Committee made the following recommendations: State funding should be in kind; setting up of an election corpus fund of equal contribution of 600 crore from center and states; state support should be limited to the Election Commission recognized parties; compulsory submission of annual accounts by political parties to the IT department; donations above Rs. 10,000 should be in the form of cheque/draft along with the disclosure of names of donors.
4. Jeevan Reddy Committee (2008)
The Committee made the following recommendations:
- In order to prevent defections in politics, it suggested total ban on the merger and split of parties as permitted un der the 10th Schedule of the Constitution.
- Ten-times increase in the deposits for the elections to discourage non-serous candidates from contesting elections.
- In order to check entry of criminal elements in politics, it suggested that a candidate should be disqualified from contesting elections if charges are framed by the court in any offence listed in the Representation of people’s Act, 1951. Please note that earlier Vohra Committee (1993) also found close nexus between politicians, bureaucrats and criminals.
4. Law Commission on Electoral Reforms
The 170th Report (1999) of the Commission on electoral reforms recommended that the formation, functioning, income, expenditure and internal working of recognized political parties should be regulated by law enacted by the Parliament.
Similarly, the 244th Report (2014) of the Law Commission of India titled ‘Electoral Disqualifications’ on decriminalization of politics and disqualification for filing false affidavits (2014) and the 255th Report (2015) of the Law Commission under A.P. Shah titled ‘Electoral Reforms’ made the following suggestions: Safeguards to prevent misuse of provision banning convicted persons from contesting polls; filing of false affidavit to be considered as a ‘corrupt practice’ involving disqualification; de-registration of a political party for failure to contest Parliamentary or State election for ten consecutive years; strengthening the office of the Election Commission of India by constitutional protection to all members in matters of removal, making the appointment process consultative, creating an independent and permanent Secretariat for the Election Commission of India; regulating paid news and political advertisements under the Representation of Peoples Act; compulsory voting is undesirable and against the principles of democracy.
5. National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (2001)
While making many recommendations for the change in the Constitution in all respects, this commission also made some suggestions regarding the electoral reforms. Some of these reforms are: introduction of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in all constituencies; empowering the Election Commission to declare a poll void and order re-poll in cases of booth capturing and rigging; election campaigning based on caste or religion should me made a punishable offence; debarring persons convicted of heinous crimes from contesting any political office; speedy disposal of criminal cases pending against politicians; constitution of special courts for deciding election petitions; declaration of assets and liabilities of candidates and their close relatives at the time of elections; considerable reduction in campaign period; code of conduct to come into operation as soon as the elections are announced and it should be made mandatory.
C. Parliament and Electoral Reforms
The Parliament has also made various electoral reforms though amendment in the Constitution and other relevant legal provisions. Some of these reforms are:
1. The 61st Amendment Act of the Constitution, 1988 reduced the minimum voting age from 21 to 18 years.
2. In the same year, the Representation of Peoples Act, 1951 was amended to include Section 13CC whereby election staff is deemed to be on deputation of Election Commission. As a result of this, the entire state and central government personnel are under the control, superintendence and discipline of the Election Commission.
3. In 1989, a new Section 58A was added to the Representation of Peoples Act, 1951 that empowered the Election Commission of India to declare a poll void and order a fresh poll in cases of booth capturing. The Parliament has also amended the RPA, 1951 to reduce the time of canvassing from 21 days to two weeks to save time and money in the elections.
4. The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 also prohibits political parties, candidates in elections and members of legislature from accepting any contribution from any foreign country or source.
5. The Parliament passed the Finance Act, 2017 that introduced the electoral bond scheme. Electoral bonds are interest free bearer bonds that can be purchased by citizens to donate money to political parties. The scheme has faced some criticism from the opposition parties as it does not provide for the disclosure of the identity of the donor.
D. Judiciary and Electoral Reforms
Indian judiciary has also made several pronouncements, which has implications for the electoral reforms. Some of these leading decisions are:
1. The Supreme Court in PUCL v. Union of India (2003) held that voters in India have a right to obtain information about political candidates under Article 19(1) (a) of the Constitution of India. This has led to the provision for disclosure of income and assets of candidates at the time of filling nomination.
2. In Lily Thomas v. Union of India (2013) the court set aside the Clause 8(4) of the Representation of Peoples Act that allowed convicted MPs/MLAs to hold office after conviction in cases of appeal. However, the court stated that a sitting MP/MLA will be immediately disqualified on conviction irrespective of the appeal, if conviction is for a period of two years or more.
3. In S. Subramaniam Balaji v. State of Tamil Nadu and Others the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to frame guidelines regulating the contents of Manifestoes released by political parties for ensuring transparency, level playing field and credibility of election promises.
4. Subsequently, in PUCL v. Union of India (2013) the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional right of citizens to caste a NOTA (None Of The Above) or negative vote in elections.
5. In Subramanian Swamy vs. Union of India, the Supreme Court made the use of VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) mandatory and an indispensable part of free and fair elections.
6. In 2013 ruling by the Central Information Commission (CIC), which treated Political parties as ‘Public Authorities’. But the political parties ignored this direction. Hence, a petition (2017) has been filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in the Supreme Court that seeks to bring political parties within the ambit of Right to Information Act in order to curb the use of black money in elections. But still political parties remain out of the jurisdiction of the RTI Act, 2005, because the case is not decided.
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