An Ode to Election Commission book review Sarthak Bagchi

2019

As the constitutional body that conducts elections, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has emerged as a trusted institution within the shared space of democracy in India. This process has, however, been a fraught one because of contestation over the ECI’s constitutional responsibility and the power of Parliament to make laws to govern electoral matters. This comprehensive monograph discusses the history of the ECI through a study of the measures it has adopted to ensure certainty of procedures in order to maintain the democratic uncertainty of electoral outcome. In this context, innovations such as the Model Code of Conduct have enhanced the rule-making powers of the ECI. Going beyond the ECI’s design and performance framework, Singh and Roy argue that changes in the nature of electoral contests and domination of political regimes have made the task of preserving electoral integrity and assuring its deliberative content a challenging one.

Public institutions in the developing world are often characterized by institutional capture or decay. Yet, India’s Election Commission has become one of its most powerful regulatory bodies. The Election Commission has overseen the completion of 16 national and 350+ state elections since 1952. It is one of the most widely-celebrated and trusted public institutions in India, enjoys substantial powers, and conducts some of the longest elections in the world. We use a process-tracing approach to explain the EC’s surprising expansion of mandate, arguing that in a federal democracy: 1) when institutional constraints are weakened; 2) when state-based actors demand a competent and neutral arbiter; and 3) when entrepreneurial bureaucratic actors take advantage of moments of political opportunity, those aspects of the bureaucracy that can credibly meet these demands are able to successfully expand their powers. Changes in Model Code Implementation and Election Duration attest to the Election Commission’s broader role. The Election Commission’s experience suggests that a weak executive can facilitate the strengthening of state institutions and that, under federalism, state-based electoral forces can produce strong national institutions.

The paper is an argument for a new approach to electoral reform in India. A detailing of what ails Indian elections is followed by a summary of reform initiatives so far. The paper then argues that while reform efforts so far have focused on supply side regulation, that is, laying down minimum conditionalities for a candidate to contest elections, it is now time to shift to an alternate and complementary paradigm. Demand side regulation, which the paper proposes, works by providing voters a performance report on the status of their constituencies based on certain pre-determined standardized pan-Indian parameters. Operationalization of this strategy is discussed, as well as the distinction between the two reform approaches. 2 A Performance Paradigm Approach to Electoral Reform in India. Dr.Kalpana Gopalan. IAS. "If the people who are elected are capable and men of character and integrity, then they would be able to make the best even of a defective Constitution. If they are lacking in these, the Constitution cannot help the Country. After all, a Constitution like a machine is a lifeless thing. It acquires, life because of the men who control it and operate it, and India needs today nothing more than a set of honest men who will have the interest of Country before them…. It requires men of strong character, men of vision, men who will not sacrifice the interests of the Country at large for the sake of smaller groups and areas….. We can only hope that the Country will throw up such men in abundance".

Fair and free elections are the backbone of representative democracy which not only determines its success rate but also the parameter to measure its level of development. Therefore, the quality of electoral process is a precondition for the quality of governance prevailing there in. India is the largest democracy in the world (over 85 crore voters) having maximum youth population. It is more stable and successful than the government of any other developing country. India adopted Parliamentary democracy to secure its unity and stability as well as nation building and socioeconomic reconstruction. Even after more than six decades of independence, the country is facing threat from factors like castism, communalism, criminalisation of politics, corruption, poverty, unemployment, decay in government institutions, decline of moral values in politics and the mal-practices prevailing in our electrol system. The expectations and aspiration of the masses are shattered by their own elected representatives. Indian constitution has provided the country, a highpowered unified authority, Election Commission (EC), autonomous in character and free from executive and political interferencce, for organising fair and free elections to the President and the the Vice-President of India and of the Parliament and the State legislatures. But, with the passage of time many distortions and evil practices such as use of money, and muscle power in elections, booth capturing; misuse of official machinery; poll violence; participation of non-serious and independent candidates; and regionalism etc. have crept in our electoral process which have not only led to the crisis of governance but have also posed threat to democratic system.

Bharti Raina, 2020

Elections are the basic essentials of a Democracy. They empower the people to choose their leaders and thus, see how the government operates. India being the largest democracy in the world enjoys a systematic procedure of election. However, corrupt practices are still a hindrance in ensuring free and fair elections in the country. The Election Commission, an independent body supervising all the election procedure, has tried and still strives to eradicate the malpractices and challenges faced in elections. It has successfully introduced various reforms but still faces various challenges. In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyse the procedure and reforms along with some of the major issues involved in elections in India. Keywords- Election procedure, Democracy, Candidates, Parties, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, Election Commission of India, Corruption, Malpractices, Challenges, EVM, VVPAT, EPIC, cVIGIL.

India as the largest democracy in the world enjoys free and fair elections. But the blemish of corrupt practices eclipses the lunar rays of our electoral process. Today, the question of electoral reforms arises due to the growing deterioration in electoral politics. There is a dire need to strengthen the electoral system of our country in order to realize the true potential of a well functioning democracy. Keeping in view of the importance of the subject I conducted a qualitative study on the by using both primary and secondary sources. In this paper an attempt has been made to analyse some of the major issues which are to be resolved and also tried to put forward certain suggestions in respect of electoral reform in India.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013

India is the largest Democracy in the World but we feel that due to certain reasons, Democracy is not working properly. So, now the researchers feel that why this largest Democracy is not working properly? There is some thing wrong in the Electoral process. Here I have indicated the total happenings in the present days Electoral exercise and also suggested some remedies for the betterment of the Electoral system.: This has been amongst the most widely discussed electoral reforms in India. Multi-cornered contests have become a norm in India rather than an exception due to the increase in the number of smaller and regional parties. There have been cases in the state assembly elections where a candidate has been declared winner with the victory margin of less than 100 votes. Apart from this anomaly, in most cases, a candidate wins the election by securing just 30-35 per cent of the total number of votes polled. Hence he or she cannot be deemed to be a choice of majority of the electorate. To overcome this limitation, the first-past-the-post system should be replaced with a two-stage electoral process. In this, a second round of election will be held if none of the candidates in the fray is able to get 50 per cent of the total number of votes polled in the first round. The two candidates who have obtained the maximum number of votes in the first round will fight in the second round. Whoever between the two gets more than 51 per cent of the total votes polled in the second round is declared the winner.

India has the distinction of being the largest democracy of the world. Elections are the most important and integral part of politics in a democratic system of governance. While politics is the art and practice of dealing with political power, election is a process of legitimization of such power. Democracy can indeed function only upon this faith that elections are free and fair and not rigged and manipulated, that they are effective instruments of ascertaining popular will both in reality and in form and are not mere rituals calculated to generate illusion of difference to mass opinion, it cannot survive without free and fair elections. The ideal conditions require that an honest, and upright person who is public spirited and wants to serve the people, should be able to contest and get elected as people's representatives. But in actual fact, such a person as aforesaid has very little or no chance of either contesting or in any case winning the election. There has been a growing concern over the years in India about several aspects of our electoral system. The Election Commission has made changes in several areas to respond to some of the concerns. The topic of electoral reforms has been taken up by numerous government committees in the recent past, including but not limited to: Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms (1990) Vohra Committee Report (1993) Indrajit Gupta Committee on State Funding of Elections (1998) Law Commission Report on Reform of the Electoral Laws (1999) National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (2001) Election Commission of India – Proposed Electoral Reforms (2004) The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2008) But there remain some critical issues that might need legislative action to bring about the required changes. The criminalisation of our political system has been observed almost unanimously by all recent committees on politics and electoral reform. Criminalisation of politics has many forms, but perhaps the most alarming among them is the significant number of elected representatives with criminal charges pending against them. The financing of elections has become a major issue in the past few decades. It is widely believed that the cost of fighting elections has climbed far above the legal spending limits. This has resulted in lack of transparency, widespread corruption, and the pervasiveness of so-called 'black money'. The conduct of elections also has a number of issues that need to be addressed. While the massive size of the electorate makes holding elections a daunting task, it should not serve as a justification for the presence of issues such as booth capturing, intimidation of voters, tampered electoral rolls, large-scale rigging of elections and other polling irregularities; the proliferation of non-serious candidates; and the abuse of religion and caste in the mobilization of voters. There are also major issues dealing with the role of political parties in the electoral system: proliferation of non-serious parties; process of recognition and de-recognition of political parties; disclosure of assets and liabilities of parties; and audit and publishing of assets and liabilities.