Meet bats for better electoral system
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, January 15 2013:
The present majoritarian electoral system in India is becoming misfit for people of all classes.
Apart from nullifying the essence of democracy, it has also become a breeding ground for corruption, opined Dr M Nara Singh, National Co-ordinator of Campaign for Election Reforms in India (CERI) and General Secretary of Communist Party of India (CPI), Manipur State Council.
Delivering the key note address of a day-long symposium on 'election reforms-need of the hours' organized by All India Youth Federation (AIYF) at JN Academy Hall here today, Dr Nara observed that the present electoral system is known as first-past-the-post (FPTP) under which political party/parties came into power after getting minority votes.
The changing trend of considering election as a festival of free liquor and money distribution and culture of gun, rampant malpractices and other untoward election related violence are the fault of the majoritarian electoral system in India.
"In the present society, where youths are looking for good governance the present electoral system creates havoc among us and is becoming a breeding ground for corruption", he reiterated, and added that in order to make the society free from such maladies the present electoral system should be replace by a better one which is proportionate electoral system.
Dr Nara pointed out that a total number of 89 countries in the world have switched to the new electoral system.
Proportionate electoral system is no more new to us; various leaders in India have proposed it at different phases in the Parliament, and now only the acceptance of all the political parties is left to adopt the system in the country.
He assured that even if it took some time to reform the electoral system, the country would surely adopt proportionate representation of electoral system after the Parliamentary election in 2019 .
Terming proportionate representation of electoral system as the supreme manifestation of democracy, M C Raj, who is the founder of CERI and special guests of the symposium, said that democracy as we see in India is the result of western enlightenment which dated back to 5 centuries.
We are claiming India's democracy as the largest democracy in the world.
But the reality is that our is a shame democracy in the world, wasting 75% of country's total votes.
Asking AIYF, CPI state council, Senior Citizens for Society, Manipur and other organizations in Manipur to submit a letter proposing adoption of proportionate representation of electoral system in the country to Prime Minister as well as to the Chairperson of United Progressive Alliance; Union Home Minister and Vice President of India, Raj maintained that if the common people are involved in the mechanism of governance then we need to change the electoral system as did in Germany.
Under the new system, coalition form of government would come in the Centre and the State assemblies that would bring all for stakeholders, respecting the identity, philosophy and culture of all the participating communities.
L Sandanada Singh, General Secretary of Senior Citizens for Society, Manipur, who attended the function as of one of the invited guests, said that except for five MPs in the Parliament who get more than 50% of the total votes in their constituencies, all the MPs in Lok Sabha won their seats by securing lesser portion of the total votes.
Apart from that, because of majoritarian electoral system we are sending 150 MPs in Lok Sabha and 73 MPs in Rajya Sabha who have criminal records to representing us.
Highlighting the need for democratizing registration of voters and foolproof electronic voting machines in India, P Saratchandra Singh, Retd, IAS officer, who addressed the gathering as one of the invites, suggested setting up of a special police team/cell to handle election related violence in India.
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