Political Agenda
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India is the largest democracy. But looking at the political process at micro- as well as macro-level, we find today a scenario which can hardly be called democracy; at least in true sense of the term. Given below are few glimpses about the present operation of political process:
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The percentages of voting are very low. Candidates get elected by securing 25-30% of total votes polled, which is 40-45% of the electorate. This way the winning candidates are securing only 10-15% votes of the total electorate. And they represent 100% of the electorate in the Parliament / Assembly. Do they ? Low voting percentages are beneficial for the manipulators as they have to put in lesser effort in manipulating the election process.
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The voter lists are defective and are liable to be manipulated. A large part of the electorate doesn't find its name in the voter list and are thus eliminated from the democratic process. The voter lists bear same number of bogus names put in by the manipulators to facilitate their tasks of making bogus votes or at least reducing the voting percentage.
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Even the enlightened people have lost interest in the election process since every party is fielding same type of candidate - persons who are capable of winning the elections by any means. They feel that none of the candidates are good enough and none of them, or to some extent, none of the parties are going to make any difference. They are not here for any good of the public. They are here only to somehow win the elections and consequently attain power.
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The political parties do not present any issue to vote on, or they present such common issue that do not influence the voting trend. In the absence of any issue, people loose interest in voting and either do not vote or vote on other non-factors like caste, religion or region. This in turn adds to the interests of manipulators.
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Criminal elements wielding money-power and muscle-power have entered politics in a big way. The political parties are increasingly giving tickets to these elements as they are proving to be the winning candidates and that they are capable of not only paying heavily to the party for the tickets but also spending huge sums during the election campaign.
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The media - both print and electronic - have also started talking about the elections and ticket distribution in terms of caste and religious equations, relegating to the background their role as the fourth pillar of Democracy.
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The manipulators, Political parties and the criminal elements have deliberately made the elections costly enough to alienate the common man from contesting elections. Today a serious candidate spends about Rs. 15,000,000/- in a parliamentary election and Rs. 5,000,000/- in a state assembly election. Clearly enough, such sums are unthinkable for a common man or for a good candidate with clean character.
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Thus under a well thought strategy, common man is being alienated from both processes of democracy- contesting elections and voting. So, what we are having today may better be called a pseudo-democracy.
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There is no democracy within the political parties themselves. The head of the political parties are being called 'supremo'. Family hierarchy is prevalent in almost all political parties. Party tickets are being sold for cash. In these circumstances, any honest worker of the party cannot even dream of getting a higher position or a party ticket. This way we are having 'aristocracy' within the parties instead of 'democracy'.
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There is no transparency regarding the spending of development funds (vikas nidhi) allotted to the representatives; it is Rs.20,000,000/- per year for the parliamentarians and Rs.10,000,000/- per year for the state legislators.
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Of late, it is being observed that people have actually started voting for the criminal elements, hoping for them to do more for the public good as compared to the political leaders, or to some extent, influenced by their money and their muscle. This trend is even worse as it indicates that democratic politics is giving way to tribal form of politics.
This situation has to be rectified.
Vikalp Manch, led by Shailendra Singh is working towards this rectification along following lines:
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To make the people realize their political responsibility as a citizen of this country. No one can say that being a common man, I have nothing to do with politics. The lost faith in the political system has to be re-established. People have to realize that if good people keep running away from Politics, the criminal elements are going to get a walkover.
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To enlighten people about the revolutionary powers vested in their right to vote.
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To create awareness among the public about the process necessary under the present system, to be able to exercise their franchise, and that too, to some effect. The people have to ensure before every election that their name is there in the voter's list, if not, to fill up the forms for this purpose. They have to ensure that their name remains in the voter list till the time of elections. They will have to go out to vote, considering it their utmost duty as a citizen of this country, and choose the best candidate available, unbiased by various distracting factors like caste, religion or region. They should exercise their right to vote if they find their vote already cast, they can challenge the vote with the presiding officer who will have to allow them to vote. They will have to keep their vote a secret keeping with the sanctity of the system of secret ballot.
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To make the public representatives give account of the works done out of their development funds to the public through the media. Also monitoring of the works done will be arranged through the media.
In future, Vikalp Manch will represent before the election commission, the following changes in the electoral system:
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Right to choose none of the candidates should be given to the voters. In case of majority of voters choosing none of the candidates, the election process should be repeated for that constituency. Although it will entail additional expenses, but it will go a long way in fulfilling the right of the public to have good candidates as their representative. Also it will give a message to the political parties to field good candidates in elections.
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Public should be given the right to recall the candidates not performing up to the mark. A mechanism should devised for this purpose to ascertain the performance of the representative periodically.
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Public should have the right to choose the Head of the Government who should be free to form his own cabinet. This is especially important in the age of coalition government when the head of government is under constant pressure to somehow keep his government intact.
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There should be a strict bar on the elections expenses made by the candidates. Rallies should be substituted with open debates on the electronic channels.