Electoral Reforms

i believe in Transparency. It is one of the ideals that i believe all of human interactions should aspire towards.

In India, the Right To Information (RTI) Act has served to make the functioning of the government much more transparent than in the past, and more than in most other countries, as far as i know.

It is my view that even political parties should be transparent in their functioning. This, according to me, is also a sign of true democracy, as opposed to the holding of secretive consultations and confabulations.

In keeping with these ideals, i plan to post on this website (among other writings), my own communications to my party, and to various political leaders. This is because i intend all my inputs to be publicly viewed and thus open to criticism and scrutiny.

Here is a letter i sent out a few days ago, to my party's newly created electoral reform committee:

Dear Ambikaji,

Congratulations on being appointed the Chairperson of our Party’s committee on Electoral Reforms. It was most heartening to hear our Party President’s commitment to Electoral Reforms in the course of her speech at the Chintan Shivir that was watched closely by many. As a grassroots INC worker since the mid-1990s, and because of having had the opportunity to assist my father, V. Kishore Chandra Deo when he wrote a book on the subject in the early 1990s, i keenly look forward to reading your committee’s report.

I am sure that the learned members are already aware of the tasks at hand such as the need to debate and discuss in detail, the existing suggestions for electoral reform that have already been made by the Election Commission; a close scrutiny  of, and brainstorming over the RPA etc. There are some additional points that i’d like to draw the attention of the committee to.

1.       I recommend that our party take a stand against banning parties with leftist ideologies as that is only likely to radicalize and frustrate people with such perspectives. As political participants, they are likely to add constructively to the democratic decision-making process in this era of coalition politics. We could, however, look at recommending the scrutiny of every party’s Constitution and Manifesto against whether or not they adhere to the ideals of our Indian Constitution, especially the Preamble and the Fundamental Rights.

2.       While discussing controls over (or access to) advertising and media expenditure etc., please keep in mind, the role of new technologies, the internet, and specifically the social media, and please suggest a broad party stand on these issues from the point of view of the election process.

3.       While discussing the funding of elections/state funding etc., please include discussions on cheque payments for counting and polling agents; possible subsidies; practical ways of curbing wasteful publicity-related expenditure outside of the campaign period.

4.       A discussion on outlining some standards of electoral conduct for our own party members.

5.       A scrutiny of the evolving case law on Elections, with a focus on the growing role/overdependence on the judiciary in this context. The party could point out mechanisms to the government, that would help it to to reduce the scope for judicial activism and also not impose, by default, decision-making on lawyers who represent the government in the courts.

6.       Ways in which to ensure that local body elections are not party-driven.

Warm regards,

V. Shruti Devi

Lawyer and Party Worker.