FAIRNESS AT PLAY

TEAM - PRAVARTAK

Ravin Singh

Dhawan Gupta

Vijay Pandey

Sangeet Choubey

Arpit Kumar Mishra

IIT (BHU)

Varanasi

Muscle and Money Power in Politics

Scope:

The problem affects every

policy concerning health, education,

infrastructure, research,

agriculture and many more.

Politics is policy making and if

politics is affected our policies are

affected.

Causes: 1. Greed of power: The politicians get very high

facilities which make them power adherent and hence

they always want to come in power.

2. Black Money: People with criminal backgrounds have

ample amount of black money, which can be utilized

during the election. This provides a sense of security to the political parties and

hence they promote them as their candidates.

Reasons for selecting the

cause:

Political instability in a country can affect the

country in myriad ways. Various problems which we see around us

if linked will finally terminate on how bad

the politics of the country is. So if politics

of a country can be improved, various other problems can be solved

automatically.

• Parties will have to declare their candidates six months prior to election. In this way the voters will get time to make sure whether the candidates are fit to be voted. ECI can debar a candidate if he is found tainted and can also forbid the party to declare another candidate from that constituency in that election.

Candidature Declaration

• An additional option of Right to reject must be given on electoral ballots. In case if voter is not happy with any of the candidates listed, he should be given power to cast a negative vote of his choice. In case negative votes in a constituency exceeds the total positive votes casted, election in that constituency shall be cancelled.

Right to reject

• All the funds amounting greater than Re. 100 shall be listed on the websites of the political parties with proper wire transfer. All accounts of political parties should be audited from time to time.

Transparency

in funding

• Allowances like bungalows, subsidy on air travel, food, telephone bills, red beacon must be restricted only to governance purposes.

Reducing incentives

Proposed Solutions

• All political parties should come under RTI. RTI

• Politics should be encouraged among the youth as a nation serving option by creating political clubs in colleges.

Encouraging Youth

• Subsidies in any form should be reduced for people who don’t cast their votes thereby making voting mandatory. Remember it is not only your right to vote but also your duty to participate in this democracy.

Penalties

Leveraging government infrastructure

ECI will need state police for investigation of crime against candidates with serious charges and fast trial courts to prove the charges. This will require extra recruiting in police forces.

Proper database of voters per polling booths should be made. All these requires networks and computers which can be easily handled.

Formation of clubs, proper funding of these clubs and human resources are required in the colleges to promote politics among youths.

Challenges and mitigating factors

The biggest challenge in implementing the proposed solution are the politicians who are sitting in the parliament of which 1 in every 4 are facing criminal charges.

Since the candidates are investigated by the state police which comes under the concerned state government, hence the reliability of the investigations can be questioned.

The decreasing subsidy for people who don’t cast their vote may cause social unrest among the people.

References

http://www.wikipedia.org

http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/05/01/demand-for-criminal-politicians/gfol

http://casi.ssc.upenn.edu/system/files/Market%2Bfor%2BCriminality%2B-%2BAug%2B2011.pdf

http://academia.edu/1982828/An_essay_on_Electoral_Reforms_in_India