Manthan Topic: Introducing electoral reforms to reduce the influence of money and muscle power in politics

Team Details

Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar, India

Tamojit Ghosh

Alinda Dey

Vikas Kumar Jha

Shashank Srivastava

Debanjan Majhi

“There is enough in the world to meet everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed”

Father of the Nation - Mahatma Gandhi

Basic Problems of Using Muscle Power

The biggest effect that muscle power has, is by creating an

environment of fear and threat among the voters which

indirectly hinders the fare process of election and hampers the democratic process of India.

Also it has been seen that many of the able candidates either withdraw or do not contest in the elections because of the threat caused by the muscle

power.

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Let’s find out the solutions

Strengthening Democracy from grass root level

• A collegium should be formed Consisting Supreme Court Judge, Eminent Jurist, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, union law minister, any prominent social worker working for electoral betterment for 2-3 years.

• This collegium will make a committee of members at union level that should be approved by the president.

Central Monitoring Committee

• Central Monitoring Committee will make state level monitoring committees in each states and the members name should be prior approved by the governor of the respective state.

• The governor should have power to ask for amendment to the members list.

Function of the Monitoring Committee

• In many ways it will act as an enquiry wing of Election Commission.

• The State Monitoring Committees will monitor each and every Gram Panchayat election and will have to submit the report on the conduct of election in the state concerned to the State Election Commission.

Some Mandatory Steps Should Be Taken

Transparency- Each and every elected candidate of a State should come within the ambit of State Monitoring Committee and should be liable to explain their concerns, if any.

No Opinion Poll-

Majority of people are influenced by the opinion polls, which happens before elections. So this type of polls should not be allowed before elections like in western countries because powerful sections of society always maintain a hold over the media and can make use of it.

No convicted Candidates-

A group of heinous offences should be listed by the Supreme Court panel, which are not accepted in the society and any candidate facing Trials on these offences should be required to withdraw their nominations. Safeguard-Accusations should not be politically motivated and should be lodged before 6 months

Rest of the Mandatory Steps

Security of Candidates

According to ECI the section 34 of RPA should be amended so that Election Commission has a say in security fees of the candidate. As of now the fees for LS election is Rs. 10000 and Rs. 5000 for Assembly Election. The recommendation of ECI should be implemented so that EC can provide security to all candidates and minimize the evil of muscle power.

Election Procedure

Election should be held in different zones at different time so that we can face the dearth of security forces and provide sufficient forces to each and every poll booth and remotest corner.

Co-operations between ECI and Central Monitoring Committee If any voter has any complaint against any candidate then they can directly lodge their complaints to the monitoring committee of their respective states through mail, telephones or by letters. The name of the compliant will not be disclosed. Now if there is any prima facia evidence against the candidate, he/she will be required to show cause to the committee. and if required ,he/she will be tried in a Fast Track Court meant to dispose election related disputes. Each State Monitoring Committee will submit the annual reports on development in electoral environment to the Central Monitoring Committee on Yearly Basis. And The ECI will take actions according to its discretion.

Influence of Money

•As per the rules a candidate can use 25 lac for Lok Sabha election campaign and for Assembly election campaign 16 lac can be used by a candidate.

•But in reality candidates are using money beyond the limitations.

Election Campaigns

•Most eligible candidate should be given the party ticket to be elected from any place.

• In reality candidates are spending lots of money to get the tickets and they expect to get back much more after they have won. This results in them being corrupt.

To buy tickets from the party

•Before the election a huge amount of money is being used to win the mind of voters by presenting them with benefits.

•Cycles, motorcycles, laptops, televisions and in some cases even cash are being distributed among the voters to maintain their vote-bank.

Influencing voters by money power

To keep the party workers mentally

boosted

•To fulfil unauthorised works like election booth capturing, ballot box absconding etc. Govt. authorities are being sold with large amount of bribe.

•As a result they do not look after for the forceful works.

To breach Government

authority

•Not only top leaders but workers also stay with public throughout the year.

•It’s very important to use their enthusiasm and dedication to work by co-ordinating with top leaders which costs a lot for the party.

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• Parties should stop their advertisement before 6 months of the election.

• But they can campaign about any scheme covered in the stipulated time period.

• Alternative method of campaign is internet/ social networking sites.

• Election commission should monitor whether the party is campaigning against any other party.

• To make the co-ordination fruitful between higher and grass root level workers, the best and cheapest way is telecommunication.

• All party should come under RTI act, as advised by Chief Information Commissioner. Common people should have the right to get information about the validity of candidature.

• No one can ask about the candidate who has won last 2 elections and has a criminal background which is under any court.

•Chairman of each small areas like Gram Panchayat, Wards should submit a report to monitoring committee so that no such activity has taken place by the parties to influence voters with money power.

•These members will have the

liberty to submit the report in their regional language.

• If any evidence found against them , producing wrong report then action will be taken against them.

References:

Election Commission of India

Indian Polity by Laxmikanth

www.capitalmind.in

www.thehindubusinessline.com