DEMOCRACY OR PLAY OF NUMBERS?

A majority of those who come to the Lok Sabha or to the State Assemblies are elected by a minority of votes cast in their favour. There have been MPs and MLAs who secured even less than 15 per cent and still won

India is in urgent need of electoral reforms. But what should it be: A US-style presidential election or two-to-three national party system? This issue is the debate of the hour among constitutional experts, political stalwarts and also the common man. In the past, BJP patriarch LK Advani had raised the issue of having a two-to-three national party system for the Lok Sabha elections. Without the ventilator support from many regional parties, no Government can survive, let alone implement reforms. But no leader speaks in favour of electoral reforms.

Today, we have more than 3.2 million elected representatives. The 15th General Election to Lok Sabha was the largest and the most stupendous electoral exercise anywhere in the world and was universally acclaimed as free and fair.  It cannot, however, be denied that if we look at the state of our democracy today, there is much to hang our heads in shame.

During the recent years, the composition of our Legislatures and the conduct of our Legislators and Ministers has been a matter of disgrace for democracy. Governments have lost their credibility.  People have seen  democratic Governments surviving through the politics of brinkmanship and blackmail.  There is disconnect between the people and the politicians.  There can be no greater threat to democracy than a scenario in which the people lose faith in the representatives they elect.

Elections are the foundation of democracy. Unfortunately, our electoral system and processes are afflicted by seven maladies : Money Power, Muscle Power, Mafia Power, Casteism, Communalism, Criminalisation and Corruption.

To win an election, you need votes and notes. To garner votes you need to mount massive election campaigns which require truckloads of money.  Money is needed not only for campaigning, but for buying, bribing, cajoling and black-mailing the voters and their leaders.  According to a recent study of State Assembly elections, 34 per cent of all the voters were believed to have been paid in cash.

On an average, a Lok Sabha seat election cost between Rs5 crore to Rs15 crore. It is natural that the winning candidate should try to recover the amount which he has spent, and something more to take care of the next election — and for the rainy day. If that is possible through corruption, so be it.

The question is: Where does this money come from?  Nobody pays his hard-earned tax-deducted white money to politicians.  But no one parts even with his black money without expecting good returns on the investment. During the licence raj, industrial houses financed political parties and election campaigns. Then, the mining, land and the crime mafia joined in.

After that, the criminals, smugglers, illicit drug and arms dealers and gangsters paid the politicians what they called ‘protection money’. Soon, the criminals realised that, since elections were being conducted with their money and muscle power, they should themselves enter in politics. The result is before us all to see.

The number of persons with a criminal background has shown an alarming increase in Parliament and State Legislatures in recent years. In 2004, 23.2 per cent of Lok Sabha members had criminal antecedents.  During the 2009 election, the number rose to 30 per cent. The number of crorepatis in the Lok Sabha, which was 156, or 29 per cent in 2004, rose to 304, or 58 per cent, in the present Lok Sabha. This shows a a close and growing link with the world of crime, among other things.

Our founding fathers wanted to build a united nation from a highly segmented feudal society. But today, political leaders play divisive politics to build vote banks that catapult them to power. Politicians in all parties have a vested interest in keeping the people divided, backward, poor and illiterate. For example, as the Sachar Committee showed, precious little has been done during the last 65 years to ameliorate the condition of minorities. Similarly, no serious effort has really been made for the upliftment of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. 

Today, the representational legitimacy of our elected representatives stands seriously eroded. Available statistics show that, if you have a secured vote-bank of 15 per cent, you can be 90 per cent sure of winning.  How to build this 15 per cent vote-bank is the concern of every candidate.  Also, if you can be sure of winning with the support of this 15 per cent vote- bank, why should you bother about the other 85 per cent?

Thus, the majority of those who are elected to the Lok Sabha or to State Assemblies are elected by a minority of votes cast in their favour. There have been MPs and MLAs, who secured even less than 15 per cent and yet became Ministers. Can they really be called representatives of the people? Unfortunately, the number of those elected by a minority of the votes cast is increasing. Those winning Lok Sabha seats with a majority of votes was 218 in 1999, and in 2009, it came down to just 120.