The impossibility of implementing a change — from the current electoral system in India of holding multiple elections at multiple times in multiple constituencies in our vast country to a system of “one-nation , one-election” every 5 years — has been lucidly explained by a well-respected luminary ( name withheld for privacy reasons) below.
After paying attention to what has been said below , I asked myself a question “So, what then is the solution?”. I thought up a possible solution and offered it to the learned gentleman in the form of an ardent appeal by an ordinary citizen to all right-thinking highly-placed intellectuals and civil-society activists (think-tanks, jurists, media-warriors et al ) to take action. Before you read my appeal , please carefully read the reasons why effecting reform in our electoral system today is such an uphill task … and the reason why, ironically, is the Constitution of India to which all we citizens owe allegiance!
“Bringing all elections at one time at this juncture will mean cutting down some legislatures’ term and increasing terms in office of some others to bring them all to one synchronised period requires consensus across the board across the entire political spectrum as it will require constitutional amendments. That just will not happen , however desirable it is. And it can be effective only if in future premature dissolutions of elected legislative assemblies are barred by law – – I.e. every assembly should run its full five year tenure and any no-confidence motion cannot be moved unless it is also accompanied by a proposal for an alternative govt. as replacement … as it happens in some European countries.
(A respected and competent former Constitutional functionary of India)
Saving in huge election expenditure is an issue today in the country —- not the expenditure on mere conduct of elections ; that’s only a miniscule part of the other massive expenditure which political parties incur and the corollary is the forcible ‘contributions ‘ from every section of the business community and the enormous corruption that goes with it . Yes, simultaneous elections in India — “one-nation, one-election” principle — are desirable but they won’t happen or work for this most important reason: It is difficult to get a consensus for the required amendments to the Constitution and other laws.
It’s its no go!”
Law Commission Report 2018 submitted to Law Ministry recommending simultaneous elections system
Respected Sir,
This grim assessment coming as it does from you —- a most distinguished former constitutional functionary — makes ordinary citizens like me very sad to know that no possible good can ever come out of the rectification of whaf is patently bad in our country’s body politic simply because the bad has already become irreversible by operation of laws and commandments cast in stone in a holy book called the Constitution of India!
Sir, your final line “… simultaneous elections are desirable but wont happen” and “ .. it’s no go.” does sound like the knell of the last nail hammered into the coffin of the truly good proposition being made in the country from certain quarters for a much badly wanted electoral reform in this country .
Sir, as an ordinary citizen with little expertise in the intricacies and nuances of electoral and Constitutional laws, may I ask you a question?
I would like to know if we were to have a nation-wide people’s Referendum on the question: “One nation, One election: Yes or No?” and if the result were to come out in favour of the Ayes , would it not be sufficient to override and defeat any Constitutional impediment standing in the way of implementing a reasonable (not necessarily perfect or fair) proposal to effect the changeover ?
A referendum of the people, by the people for the people in a democracy after all should reign supreme even over the sacred scriptural texts of the Constitution, shouldn’t it?
Sir, you know far better than I that in India today , politics is no longer a calling for noble-minded public service. Politics is business or a lifetime career. It promises both pelf and power.
Success in politics surpasses successes in all other fields of human activity since its rewards are so splendid that none others can truly match it …. others can promise pelf or power , but never both much at the same time.
Politics is such fantastic good business because the model on which it works is truly “best-in-industry”. That business-model is called Elections.
Elections in India have become a multi-trillion rupee lucrative “continuous assembly-line” industry. The industry spawns by itself and feeds upon and by itself. The rich high-vitamin, high-protein high-nutrient synthetic Fish-Feedthat this industry feeds on and thrives upon is Corruption.
Because the assembly-line belt of Elections is continuously moving 24/7/365 … (i.e. being held continually somewhere or the other in some part or remote corner of the country either as General , Assembly, Bye-, Panchayat or Muncipal elections) … the aggregate demand for the Fish-Feed called Corruption is always high, steady and constant.
The corrupt fish (politicians of all hues and shapes) develop ravenous appetites and therefore to meet Demand the “assembly-line production” of Fish-Feed has to keep working non-stop to keep pace with and satisfy the feeding frenzy …
Sir, from a common citizen’s point of view, I am convinced this is the real reason why the whole electoral system in our proudly democratic country reeks of Corruption and Venality….
The feeding frenzy of corrupt fish(prowling sharks and parasitical plankton as political predators ) has over the decades— ever since India moved away from the one-country, one-election convention — only turned the electoral waters flowing into the otherwise heathy fields of our democratic body-politic into turbid and stinking sewage…
Just consider the mind-boggling sum-total of all the electoral malpractices, diseases, pollutants and corruption that we common citizens are today forced to live with and have had to put up with all these many years , and all of which go to truly make the mammoth trillion-rupee Fish-Feed industry of electoral India:
— booth-capturing, ballot-box hijacking, ballot paper counterfeiting, ballot-box stuffing, voter-list counterfeiting, voter bribing, voter intimidation, voting-day hamper-distribution, voters bribe-money token distribution, freebie promises in exchange for votes
— shady election funding with politician-criminal nexus and politician-criminal- big-business – law-enforcement agency nexus
— black money handouts, massive foreign-currency hawala trade
— Electoral Bond Scheme — the most ingenious money laundering machine ever to be engineered in India
— the ever burgeoning bureaucracy and paraphernalia of the central and state election commissions and the consequent drain on the public exchequer
— the wasteful expenditure on giant billboards, wall posters , on election rallies and roadshows, on attendance fees paid and “biriyani packets” distributed to crowds gathered together standing in line like cattle-herds at election campaign “speakathons”
— the humongous amount of electronic bandwidth and spectrum wasted on covering electioneering events on prime TV broadcast time; the massive financial budgets spent on the country-wide election commentariat comprising news reporters, correspondents, analysts, psephologists,
— the massive non-productive expenditures on advertisements, stationery, booth-agents, touts, commission-agents, “page-committees”, vehicle-fleet rentals etc
— hate-speeches, communalist vitriol, pre and post-poll violence, goonda-giri and mafia-lordism
— and many more ….
I ask myself can a country like ours afford to keep sustained this Fish-Feed industry?
Of course , yes … We are a 1.4 billion people’s democratic republic and we deserve to exercise our adult suffrage rights . No doubt at all about it. But why must we the people of India be forced by Constitutional pundits and Election Commission mandarins to be held to ransom by artificial restraints concocted and imposed by and under law to change an electoral system ? A system that in fact we know has virtually become the fountainhead of all societal ills in our country only because it was, by a grievous error of judgment in the past, converted from being “one-nation, one-election” simple, no-nonsense political event into a gigantic “assembly-line fish-feed industrial complex”?
Sir, please let me say this to you in all humility:
It is the moral responsibility of all eminent persons like yourselves I.e. those who have held highest Constitutional offices of the land — former CECs , Supreme Court judges, jurists and lawyers, citizen -rights and civil rights groups, intelligentsia think-tanks and NGOs, ex-IAS officers, NGOs, political scientists and activists — who must now come forward and agitate and exert pressure on our ruling classes in India to hold a National referendum on this burning issue confronting the nation. There is no use just throwing the Constitutional rule-book at the people’s faces saying the provisions of law, unfortunately, make it administratively awkward, legally unfeasible or even Constitutionally impossible to effect a shift in the current electoral system. Eminent people like you Sir must give us ordinary people Hope … show us ways out of the morass … and not just commiserate with us while we continue doing nothing but hopelessly licking our wound.
Sir, I appeal to all well-meaning patriotic citizens of our country to please initiate effective action to form a formidable pressure-group or lobby to agitate at the highest levels of government, judiciary and legislatures to make a powerful and convincing case for a country-wide Referendum.
Let not We the People be left high and dry doing nothing but simply wringing our hands in despair, whimpering over how we stand frustrated by the Constitution of India!
Jai Hind!
Sudarshan Madabushi
PS: I know quite well that a Referendum in India is unconstitutional and cannot be held . So, readers, please don’t go explaining to me why it is not possible to bring change .Please tell me how Change can be made …. How a referendum can be held on this question . Thank you 🙏
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