The Hindu: Visakhapatnam: Sunday, September 16,
2018.
Parties with 38% of votes after 2014
elections are in power, he says
While larger issues on electoral reforms
are being taken up at various levels, citizen reform should play a key role at
local level with more participation by people in general and youth in
particular, former Union Energy Secretary E.A.S. Sarma has said.
Addressing a discussion on ‘Electoral
Reforms,’ organised by the Centre for Policy Studies and Visakhapatnam Public
Library on Saturday, he said 50 % quota for women, check on expenditure in the
light of studies that indicated spending of ₹10,000 crore in the recent Karnataka elections and giving tickets to
criminals, particularly those against whom charges of atrocities against women were pending, were some of the issues on which reforms were
needed.
Besides with the first-past-the-post
electoral system, parties with 38% of votes (after 2014 elections) were in
power and hence proportional representation should be introduced, Mr. Sarma
said. At the national-level an exercise to give an agenda to political parties
was being worked out by 20 individuals, including retired chief justice of
Delhi High Court Shah, Mr. Sarma said adding he was also involved in it.
‘Avoid hero worship’
He underlined the importance of dialogue
with people, dissent and discussion in democracy avoiding hero worship.
People’s manifesto
Elections were not held to GVMC for six
years now and people were helpless about it, he said. Some emotional issues
were whipped up to mislead people but vexatious local problems like pollution,
lack of cleanliness in slums and provision for sufficient water remained
unaddressed, he said stressing the importance of people’s manifesto and how
people of Ambedkarangar pursued in the 2014 elections. Mr. Sarma wanted the
youth to take an active role in the civic elections with such an agenda.
Political parties must be brought under
the RTI Act, he demanded. The amendment to relevant Act to tide over the court
judgement on accepting donations from foreign companies was challenged by him
in the Supreme Court, he said.
Answering a question on EVMs being
tamper-proof, he said developed countries like Germany and England were not
using them and no technology was 100 % safe as was being maintained by the
Election Commission.
President of CPS A. Prasanna Kumar said
the India with ‘flawed democracy’ did not figure in the first 50 countries as
the rating was based on human rights, health, education, employment
opportunities and health. The first-past-the-past system resulted in
governments and parliament not being representative. They were governments with
plurality of votes but not majority, he said.
For electoral reforms, first Election
Commission should be made a constitutional body that could not be appointed and
dismissed by executive, elections should be funded by the government, spending
of MPLAD funds should be checked and defections should be dealt with by
debarring from participation in elections.
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