REFORM
OUR ELECTION COMMISSION
And our election system also!
These two things are direly needed to be done if our democracy has to survive
with any semblance of honesty, transparency and real regard to the basic rights
and entitlements of the people. The serious risks and enormous losses involved
in the use of Electronic Voting Machines, and the need to trash them and go
back to paper ballot have been editorially highlighted in our 15 December 2018
issue. Later when polls actually took place, and are still going on in some
parts of the country, we see the EVMs everywhere behaving strangely and in
Andhra polls being held up to late nights/next day early mornings. Also
allegations are being leveled of the VVPAT code itself being surreptitiously
changed thus giving room for pre-fabrication of the results even. Now we see,
in Andhra Pradesh at least, the Election Commission usurping more powers than
granted by the Constitution and acting whimsically and transferring key
officers arbitrarily; even appointing a most inappropriate person, to say the
least, as the Chief Secretary who is now creating serious problems by trying to
run almost a parallel administration, instead of what he is lawfully bound to
do – to assist, and act per the instructions of, the Council of Ministers in
general, save in case of any election related matters. This again tells about
the States’ powers being whittled down and a sort of disguised presidential
rule imposed and complaints are coming of the quirks and blunders of the
Election Commission of India in other states too and so the manner of
appointment of and the need to control the arbitrary exercises of the
Commission also become hot topics of discussion. It may be recollected that Sri
Advani, a best parliamentarian of the BJP, himself had earlier proposed that a
committee with the Prime Minister, the chairs of both the Houses of the
Parliament, the opposition leader, et al be constituted for the selection and
appointment of ECI and also the CAG. In Pakistan, the Chief Election
Commissioner has to be a retired Supreme Court Judge and four other
Commissioners to be retired high court judges of the four provinces in
federation – certainly a better selection system than ours. Also some sort of,
and some proportion of, a proportional representation system is also a
desideratum. All this calls for a mammoth movement by the people with the
slogan “Back to Ballot!” and also for curbing and improving the Election Commission
and the election systems, especially in a manner protecting and promoting the
federal spirit and people’s participatory content of our democratic structure. §§§
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