Is Indian Electoral system designed to put into power only minority governments?

In this 2024 Lok Sabha elections,

1. Total eligible voter population = 930 million
2. Average all-India Voter turnout percentage = 60% (approx)
3. Effective voter population = 558 million
4. Let’s assume BJP wins 38% of 558 million
5. So total votes polled by BJP would be 212 million
6. So in terms of popular representation, BJP would be declared elected to power as single largest majority party on the strength of an effective vote-share of 212/930 million = 22.8%

A party that commands the mandate of just 23% of country’s voting population will rule the whole country ?! Isn’t there some grievous anomaly of democracy here ?! Makes me wonder.

That’s why I totally endorse the suggestion of former CEC Sri T S Krishnamurthi that he made in a few public forums that electoral rules are due for big change . Nothing short of 50% effective vote-share must have been polled by a political party, or else, by a coalition of parties to be able to stake a valid claim to form a government. Otherwise, the People of India will always be under-represented and much worse, all governments in power would be de jure legitimate but de facto illegitimate .

Against the above suggestion there are 4 major vociferous arguments made by some thinking souls :

ARGUMENT 1: If I forego my right to exercise my franchise, how can I be considered part of the electorate for purposes of determining the percentage polling. I’m afraid that I’m not in agreement with your logic. If you willfully don’t form part of the numerator, you cannot claim rights to be part of the denominator. As simple as that.

My rebuttal to the argument above:

Please remember whether you are part or not of numerator or denominator, you still are being factored or baked into the resulting quotient , aren’t you ? Same with elections. Whether you cast your vote or not , you will still end up being governed by a govt that is de jure majority but de facto a minority.

If your argument is to be accepted then the govt. that gets into power and forms govt. should neither not be regarded as representing you nor governing you … just because you didn’t exercise your franchise? Sounds untenable . And if accepted would turn the old slogan of Democracy “govt. of the people, by the people , for the people” into just a myth.

ARGUMENT 2.: If a coalition of parties are allowed to rule the country, then the fate of the nation would be the one it faced during V.P.Singh, Chandrashekhar, Deve Gowda, Gujral and Vajpayee’s (earlier 13 month govt). We could see the repeat of Kashmir Pandits exit from Kashmir engineered by the PDP, National Conference parties, the loot by DMK, the minority appeasement by Lalu, Sharad Pawar, Mamata and the like, all being part of coalitions. It is better to have a stable single party govt at the centre even if it represents a minority of voters who opted to vote, rather than a kichdy whose sole aim is to stick to power at any cost even if it means looting the exchequer splitting the country on communal lines.

My rebuttal : Your argument is not without weight and would be acceptable only if there is guarantee that the govt. elected on the basis of “single largest vote gathering party” will act responsibly at all times and under all circumstances. In other words, it will strive always to be an inclusive government with malice towards none and justice for all . Such a Guarantee in political life of a nation is an ideal and an impossibility . Therefore, the electoral rules must provide for such a guarantee in a democracy as large as ours.

ARGUMENT 3. I agree with your views.
But, this is inevitable in a democracy, where the rule of majority in each constituency will prevail. The winner is one who gets the maximum number of votes polled and not the maximum number of voters in that constituencyr. Logically, the ruling party is in a minority in many democracies, but “Jo jeeta wohi Sikander”

My rebuttal : Your argument is the same old one that is classically known as Plurality Vs Majority systems of voting in a Democracy .

The plurality system is the simplest means of determining the outcome of an election. To win, a candidate need only poll more votes than any other single opponent; he need not, as required by the majority formula, poll more votes than the combined opposition. The more candidates contesting a constituency seat, the greater the probability that the winning candidate will receive only a minority of the votes cast. Countries using the plurality formula for national legislative elections include Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States. Countries with plurality systems usually have had two main parties.

Under the majority system, the party or candidate winning more than 50 percent of the vote in a constituency is awarded the contested seat. A difficulty in systems with the absolute-majority criterion is that it may not be satisfied in contests in which there are more than two candidates.

Several variants of the majority formula have been developed to address this problem. In Australia the alternative, or preferential, vote is used in lower-house elections. Voters rank the candidates on an alternative-preference ballot. If a majority is not achieved by first-preference votes, the weakest candidate is eliminated, and that candidate’s votes are redistributed to the other candidates according to the second preference on the ballot. This redistributive process is repeated until one candidate has collected a majority of the votes.

In France a double-ballot system is employed for National Assembly elections. If no candidate secures a majority in the first round of elections, another round is required. In the second round, only those candidates securing the votes of at least one-eighth of the registered electorate in the first round may compete, and the candidate securing a plurality of the popular vote in the second round is declared the winner.

In India there used to be no 2-party system but multiplicity of parties . So , for our democracy to be true democracy, it is necessary to come up with some fair and just method of ushering in Majority system of voting and moving away from Plurality system.

For more on this please read this link :

https://www.britannica.com/topic/election-political-science/Plurality-and-majority-systems

ARGUMENT 4: Your argument has been used many times. If this be the criteria (more than 50% vote share – which I don’t agree) we need to move to a presidential format like in the US (where again the president does not receive 50%)

My rebuttal : Fair enough argument from your side . However, our Parliamentary system has served our democracy well enough since Independence. It only needs reform not revolution. Moving away from Parliamentary to a Presidential system of governance would not be just about voting but about government and administration itself as well as about federalist structure and balance of power between Executive, Legislative and Judiciary. What you suggest would not be reform but a complete Constitutional overhaul if not revolution. That would be utterly unnecessary and unwise.

Sudarshan Madabushi