In Chapter 1 we have seen that in a democracy it is neither possible nor necessary for people to govern directly. The most common form of democracy in our times is for the people to govern through their representatives. In this chapter we will look at how these representatives are elected. We begin by understanding why elections are necessary and useful in a democracy. We try to understand how electoral competition among parties serves the people. We then go on to ask what makes an election democratic. The basic idea here is to distinguish democratic elections from non-democratic elections.

The rest of the chapter tries to assess elections in India in the light of this yardstick. We take a look at each stage of elections, from the drawing of boundaries of different constituencies to the declaration of results. At each stage we ask what should happen and what does happen in elections. Towards the end of the chapter, we turn to an assessment of whether elections in India are free and fair. Here we also examine the role of the Election Commission in ensuring free and fair elections.

Do most leaders fulfil their election promises?

3.1 Why Elections?

Assembly Election in Haryana

This newspaper report is about the State assembly election in Haryana in 1987. The State had been ruled by a Congress party led government since 1982. Chaudhary Devi Lal, then an opposition leader, led a movement called ‘Nyaya Yudh’ (Struggle for Justice) and formed a new party, Lok Dal. His party joined other opposition parties to form a front against the Congress in the elections. In the election campaign, Devi Lal said that if his party won the elections, his government would waive the loans of farmers and small businessmen. He promised that this would be the first action of his government.

The people were unhappy with the existing government. They were also attracted by Devi Lal’s promise. So, when elections were held, they voted overwhelmingly in favour of Lok Dal and its allies. Lok Dal and its partners won 76 out of 90 seats in the State Assembly. Lok Dal alone won 60 seats and thus had a clear majority in the Assembly. The Congress could win only 5 seats.

Once the election results were announced, the sitting Chief Minister resigned. The newly elected Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) of Lok Dal chose Devi Lal as their leader. The Governor invited Devi Lal to be the new Chief Minister. Three days after the election results were declared, he became the Chief Minister. As soon as he became the Chief Minister, his Government issued a Government Order waiving the outstanding loans of small farmers, agricultural labourers and small businessmen. His party ruled the State for four years. The next elections were held in 1991. But this time his party did not win popular support. The Congress won the election and formed the government.

check your progress

Jagdeep and Navpreet read this story and drew the following conclusions. Can you say which of these are right or wrong (or if the information given in the story is inadequate to call them right or wrong):

•  Elections can lead to changes in the policy of the government.
  
• The Governor invited Devi Lal to become the Chief Minister because he was impressed with his speeches.
  
•  People are unhappy with every ruling party and vote against it in the next election.
  
•  The party that wins the election forms the government.
  
•  This election led to a lot of economic development in Haryana.
  
•  The Congress Chief Minister need not have resigned after his party lost elections.
  

Activity

Do you know when the last Assembly election was held in your state? Which other elections have taken place in your locality in the last five years? Write down the level of elections (National, Assembly, Panchayat, etc.), when were they held and the name and designation (MP, MLA, etc.) of the persons who got elected from your area.

Why do we need elections?

Elections take place regularly in any democracy. There are more than one hundred countries in the world in which elections take place to choose people’s representatives. We also read that elections are held in many countries that are not democratic.

But why do we need elections? Let us try to imagine a democracy without elections. A rule of the people is possible without any elections if all the people can sit together everyday and take all the decisions. But as we have already seen in Chapter 1, this is not possible in any large community. Nor is it possible for everyone to have the time and knowledge to take decisions on all matters. Therefore in most democracies people rule through their representatives.

Is there a democratic way of selecting representatives without elections? Let us think of a place where representatives are selected on the basis of age and experience. Or a place where they are chosen on the basis of education or knowledge. There could be some difficulty in deciding on who is more experienced or knowledgable. But let us say the people can resolve these difficulties. Clearly, such a place does not require elections.

But can we call this place a democracy? How do we find out if the people like their representatives or not? How do we ensure that these representatives rule as per the wishes of the people? How to make sure that those who the people don’t like do not remain their representatives? This requires a mechanism by which people can choose their representatives at regular intervals and change them if they wish to do so. This mechanism is called election. Therefore, elections are considered essential in our times for any representative democracy.

In an election the voters make many choices:

•  They can choose who will make laws for them.
  
•  They can choose who will form the government and take major decisions.
  
•  They can choose the party whose policies will guide the government and law making.
  

We have seen why democracies need to have elections. But why do rulers in non-democratic countries need to hold elections?

What makes an election democratic?

Elections can be held in many ways. All democratic countries hold elections. But most non-democratic countries also hold some kind of elections. How do we distinguish democratic elections from any other election? We have discussed this question briefly in Chapter 1. We discussed many examples of countries where elections are held but they can’t really be called democratic elections. Let us recall what we learnt there and start with a simple list of the minimum conditions of a democratic election:

• First, everyone should be able to choose. This means that everyone should have one vote and every vote should have equal value.
  
•  Second, there should be something to choose from. Parties and candidates should be free to contest elections and should offer some real choice to the voters.
  
•  Third, the choice should be offered at regular intervals. Elections must be held regularly after every few years.
  
•  Fourth, the candidate preferred by the people should get elected.
  
•  Fifth, elections should be conducted in a free and fair manner where people can choose as they really wish.
  

These might look like very simple and easy conditions. But there are many countries where these are not fulfilled. In this chapter we will apply these conditions to the elections held in our own country to see if we can call these democratic elections.

 Is it good to have political competition?

Elections are thus all about political competition. This competition takes various forms. The most obvious form is the competition among political parties. At the constituency level, it takes the form of competition among several candidates. If there is no competition, elections will become pointless.

Ah! So, elections are like exams where politicians and parties know if they have passed or failed. But who are the examiners?

But is it good to have political competition? Clearly, an electoral competition has many demerits. It creates a sense of disunity and ‘factionalism’ in every locality. You would have heard of people complaining of ‘party-politics’ in your locality. Different political parties and leaders often level allegations against one another. Parties and candidates often use dirty tricks to win elections. Some people say that this pressure to win electoral fights does not allow sensible long-term policies to be formulated. Some good people who may wish to serve the country do not enter this arena. They do not like the idea of being dragged into unhealthy competition.

Our Constitution makers were aware of these problems. Yet they opted for free competition in elections as the way to select our future leaders. They did so because this system works better in the long run. In an ideal world all political leaders know what is good for the people and are motivated only by a desire to serve them. Political competition is not necessary in such an ideal world. But that is not what happens in real life. Political leaders all over the world, like all other professionals, are motivated by a desire to advance their political careers. They want to remain in power or get power and positions for themselves.They may wish to serve the people as well, but it is risky to depend entirely on their sense of duty. Besides even when they wish to serve the people, they may not know what is required to do so, or their ideas may not match what the people really want.

How do we deal with this real life situation? One way is to try and improve the knowledge and character of political leaders. The other and more realistic way is to set up a system where political leaders are rewarded for serving the people and punished for not doing so. Who decides this reward or punishment? The simple answer is: the people. This is what electoral competition does. Regular electoral competition provides incentives to political parties and leaders. They know that if they raise issues that people want to be raised, their popularity and chances of victory will increase in the next elections. But if they fail to satisfy the voters with their work they will not be able to win again.

So if a political party is motivated only by desire to be in power, even then it will be forced to serve the people. This is a bit like the way market works. Even if a shopkeeper is interested only in his profit, he is forced to give good service to the customers. If he does not, the customer will go to some other shop. Similarly, political competition may cause divisions and some ugliness, but it finally helps to force political parties and leaders to serve the people.

 Read the cartoon

Read these two cartoons carefully. Write the message of each of them in your own words. Have a discussion in class on which of the two is closer to the reality in your own locality. Draw a cartoon to depict what elections do to the relationship between voters and political leaders.

3.2 What Is Our System of Elections?

Can we say that Indian elections are democratic? To answer this question, let us take a look at how elections are held in India. Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha (Assembly) elections are held regularly after every five years. After five years the term of all the elected representatives comes to an end. The Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha stands ‘dissolved’. Elections are held in all constituencies at the same time, either on the same day or within a few days. This is called a general election. Sometimes election is held only for one constitutency to fill the vacancy caused by death or resignation of a member. This is called a by-election. In this chapter we will focus on general elections.

Electoral constituencies

You read about the people of Haryana electing 90 MLAs. You may have wondered how they did that. Did every person in Haryana vote for all the 90 MLAs? You perhaps know that this is not the case. In our country we follow an area based system of representation. The country is divided into different areas for purposes of elections. These areas are called electoral constitutencies. The voters who live in an area elect one representative. For Lok Sabha elections, the country is divided into 543 constituencies. The representative elected from each constituency is called a Member of Parliament or an MP. One of the features of a democratic election is that every vote should have equal value. That is why our Constitution requires that each constituency should have a roughly equal population living within it.

Similarly, each state is divided into a specific number of Assembly constituencies. In this case, the elected representative is called the Member of Legislative Assembly or an MLA. Each Parliamentary constituency has within it several assembly constituencies. The same principle applies for Panchayat and Municipal elections. Each village or town is divided into several ‘wards’ that are like constituencies. Each ward elects one member of the village or the urban local body. Sometimes these constituencies are counted as ‘seats’, for each constituency represents one seat in the assembly. When we say that ‘Lok Dal won 60 seats’ in Haryana, it means that candidates of Lok Dal won in 60 assembly constituencies in the state and thus Lok Dal had 60 MLAs in the state assembly.

Gulbarga Lok Sabha Constituency

 

 gulbarga (kalaburagi) district  in Karnataka

Reserved Constituencies

Our Constitution entitles every citizen to elect her/his representative and to be elected as a representative. The Constitution makers, however, were worried that in an open electoral competition, certain weaker sections may not stand a good chance to get elected to the Lok Sabha and the state Legislative Assemblies. They may not have the required resources, education and contacts to contest and win elections against others. Those who are influential and resourceful may prevent them from winning elections. If that happens, our Parliament and Assemblies would be deprived of the voice of a significant section of our population. That would make our democracy less representative and less democratic.

So, the makers of our Constitution thought of a special system of reserved constituencies for the weaker sections. Some constituencies are reserved for people who belong to the Scheduled Castes [SC] and Scheduled Tribes [ST]. In a SC reserved constituency only someone who belongs to the Scheduled Castes can stand for election. Similarly only those belonging to the Scheduled Tribes can contest an election from a constituency reserved for ST. Currently, in the Lok Sabha, 84 seats are reserved for the Scheduled Castes and 47 for the Scheduled Tribes (as on 26 January 2019). This number is in proportion to their share in the total population. Thus the reserved seats for SC and ST do not take away the legitimate share of any other social group.

This system of reservation  was extended later to other  weaker sections at the district and local level. In many states, seats
in rural (panchayat) and urban (municipalities and corporations) local bodies are now reserved for Other Backward Classes (OBC) as well. However, the proportion of seats reserved varies from state to state. Similarly, one-third of the seats are reserved in rural and urban local bodies for women candidates.

Voters’ list

Once the constituencies are decided, the next step is to decide who can and who cannot vote. This decision cannot be left to anyone till the last day. In a democratic election, the list of those who are eligible to vote
is prepared much before the election and given to everyone. This list is officially called the Electoral Roll and is commonly known as the Voters’ List.

This is an important step for it is linked to the first condition of a democratic election: everyone should get an equal opportunity to choose representatives. Earlier, we read about the principle of universal adult franchise. In practice it means that everyone should have one vote and each vote should have equal value. No one should be denied the right to vote without a good reason. Different citizens differ from one another in many ways: some are rich, some are poor; some are highly educated, some are not so educated or not educated at all; some are kind, others are not so kind. But all of them are human beings with their own needs and views. That is why all of them deserve to have an equal say in decisions that affect them.

 Like in Panchayats, should we not have at least one-third seats in the parliament and assemblies reserved for women?

Nomination of candidates

We noted above that in a democratic election people should have a real choice. This happens only when there are almost no restrictions on anyone to contest an election. This is what our system provides. Anyone who can be a voter can also become a candidate in elections. The only difference is that in order to be a candidate the minimum age is 25 years, while it is only 18 years for being a voter. There are some other restrictions on criminals etc. but these apply in very extreme cases. Political parties nominate their candidates who get the party symbol and support. Party’s nomination is often called party ‘ticket’.

Every person who wishes to contest an election has to fill a ‘nomination form’ and give some money as ‘security deposit’. Recently, a new system of declaration has been introduced on direction from the Supreme Court. Every candidate has to make a legal declaration, giving full details of :

•  Serious criminal cases pending against the candidate;
  
•  Details of the assets and liabilities of the candidate and his or her family; and
  
•  Educational qualifications of the candidate.
  

This information has to be made public. This provides an opportunity to the voters to make their decision on the basis of the information provided by the candidates.

Why is there no educational qualification for holding such an important position when some kind of educational qualification is needed for any other job in the country?
Educational qualifications are not relevant to all kinds of jobs. The relevant qualification for selection to the Indian cricket team, for example, is not the attainment of educational degrees but the ability to play cricket well. Similarly the relevant qualification for being an MLA or an MP is the ability to understand people’s concerns, problems and to represent their interests. Whether they can do so or not is examined by lakhs of examiners — their voters — after every five years.
Even if education was relevant, it should be left to the people to decide how much importance they give to educational qualifications.
In our country putting an educational qualification would go against the spirit of democracy for yet another reason. It would mean depriving a majority of the country’s citizens the right to contest elections. If, for example, a graduate degree like B.A., B.Com or B.Sc was made compulsory for candidates, more than 90 per cent of the citizens will become ineligible to contest elections.