[Reader-list] "Cong has Raj, superstars to thank for extra seats"

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear Kshamendra jee and Rajen jee

A lot has been stated about the disadvantages of the 'first-past-the-post'
system, and there have been criticisms of it across the political spectrum
by different parties at different times, from the BJP to the Left to the
others. But when it comes to implementing political reform or electoral
reform, nobody really does something. The proof of the pudding would be in
the eating, so it would be better that the civil society and the media
exerts pressure on such issues (rather than the IPL and other useless
stories they follow), so that we can get electoral reforms.

For the information of all, being a student of IIT, I have had the previlige
to hear two former CEC's, namely Mr. Seshan (who was controversial of
course) and Mr. Krishnamurty (who was the CEC conducting 2004 general
elections if I am not wrong). In addition I have also heard Mr. Gopalaswamy
(the now ex-CEC who just retired after the 1st phase of general elections).
>From what I heard from them, the EC has sent a list of reforms to be
undertaken in elections, but except one, none of these were undertaken, nor
was any decision made on when they are to be implemented.

The only one which was actually implemented, was on the directive of the SC,
stating that candidates would have to mention their personal wealth and
criminal cases lodged against them (if any) during filing of the
nominations. Our very own Parliament wanted this not to be done, and as a
token measure stated that only elected candidates, after winning the
elections, would be asked to do so, as if they were doing a great deed (all
BJP, Congress, Left and other MP's if I am not wrong, were a party to this).
This too was implemented using some basic right provided in the
Constitution.

Also, some of the reforms are now in discussion in the public domain as
well. For example, these were:

1) The state govt. should resign before elections, and the elections should
be held under the President's Rule. This I heard only from Mr. Krishnamurty.

2) The major one is that we should change our system slightly. Either we
should have two elections, whereby the first is a run off to decide the top
two candidates of a particular constituency, and the second one would be
between the winner and the runners-up of the run-off election, so that any
candidate has to get at least once, more than 50% of the votes to win an
election.

This way, they also stated that elections would move away from casteism and
communalism. Also, this would ensure that regional parties, even if growing,
are based on progress based agendas and not on caste based ideologies with a
view to only help people of their caste.

3) They also said that alternately, an idea of proportional representation
must also be done if required. They believed that this would ensure that
parties would concentrate on getting more votes rather than cutting on each
other's votes.

Well, there are other reforms they also said they have sent in, and being
official CEC then (for Mr. Gopalswamy only), he said then he would like to
get the official permission for the reforms to be implemented, and then
would like to make it public (with an idea of showing as his achievement
probably or something else).

Yes, we need to debate our system. The vote percentages are not in
correlation with the seats. Something has to be done about this.

Regards

Rakesh