MEASURES UNDERTAKEN BY THE ECI TO STRENGTHEN THE ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY

ABSTRACT

India is regarded as one of the largest democracy in the world and election is an essential ingredient of the democratic system. It would be successfully performed when democracy is based on freeness and fairness elections which not to be manipulated and rigged for benefit of one’s. The Election Commission of India is a permanent and independent autonomous body which was established by the Constitution of India for directly to ensure the credibility, integrity, accountability, without any executive interference in India. The success of parliamentary government largely depends upon systematic organisations of political parties through the fair elections which comes under the jurisdiction of the election commission.

Besides, it strives to be an institution of excellence by enhancing actively participation, engagement, deepening and strengthening electoral democracy and governance in India. Over the years, there have been a number of electoral reforms like the Sixty-first Constitution Amendment Act, 1984 reduce the voting age from 21 to 18 years for the Parliament as well as State assembly elections due to confer an opportunity of unrepresented youth to express their feelings and contributes to become a part of political process. The articles 324 to 329 which consists in Part XV of the Constitution of India for conferring the provisions with regard to the electoral system in India. Most importantly, this Research Paper attempts to examine the significant measures undertaken by the Election Commission of India to strengthen the electoral democracy in India in the 21^st century.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. How to get recognition of National and State Political Parties by the Election Commission of India?
2. What are the Challenges on the Election Commission of India?

KEYWORDS

Election Commission, Constitutional Provisions, Democracy, Adult Suffrage, Representation of the People Act.

INTRODUCTION

“I understand democracy as something that gives the weak the same chance as the strong.”

Mahatma Gandhi.

The concept of democracy is envisaged by people representation at both the parliament and state assembly elections. The Hon’ble Supreme Court laid down that democracy is an unquestionable essential feature of the constitution of India. The ECI conducts elections for all 543 parliamentary constitutions and other state legislations. The morality and freedom of election may be guaranteed merely if the electoral management, the basic bedrock of democracy is placed beyond the arrive of “Party Government”. The farmers of the Indian Constitution inserted the highest substance to an independent electoral machinery for the conduct of free and fair elections. Besides, it was indispensable that an independent Election Commission with its vast appurtenance ought to be set up in the nation.

Dr. Ambedkar contended that “proposed to centralise the election machinery in the hands of a single commission is to be assisted by regional Commissioners as well as working under the supervision, direction and control of the Election Commission and not under the control of the state governor as envisaged earlier.”[1] It was no doubt an exhaustive change, however, the centralisation of electoral administration did “to prevent injustice being done by the provincial Governments to people other than those who belonged to the provinces racially, linguistically and culturally.”[2]

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The descriptive and secondary quantitative doctrinal data-based research is conducted to understand the Election portals and its significance. Free and fair election has its utmost importance in a parliamentary form of government. The significant data are mostly collected from various books, journals and articles.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The concept democracy and election are the two sides of the same coin that is safeguarded by the Election Commission of India which political parties for the purpose of elections and grants them recognition as national or state parties on the basis of their poll performance. The other parties are simply declared as registered unrecognised parties. To constitute this research, various judgements of the Hon’ble Supreme Court and books in relation to Indian Social and Political aspect has utmost importance.

THE COMPOSITION OF ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA

An Election Commission charged with the superintendence, direction, and control of the preparation of the electoral rolls and conduct of all elections to Parliament, Legislature of every State and elections to the office of the President and Vice-President is constituted under the Constitution. It shall consist of the Chief Election Commissioner and such other Election Commissioners as the President may from time-to-time fix. Their appointments will be made by the President subject to any law made in that behalf by Parliament. The Chief Election Commissioner shall act as the Chairman of the Election Commission if other Election Commissioners are appointed. Originally the commission had merely the Chief Election Commission. For a brief period from October 1989 to January 1990 it had three members, after which it was again a single-member Commission. From 1st October 1993 it has become three members Commission. The Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Conditions of Service) Amendment Act, 4 of 1994 regulates the manner of conducting business of a multi-commissioner Election Commission. Under Section 10, the decisions should as far as possible be taken unanimously. In case of a difference of opinion, majority view prevails. In a multi-member Commission, it is not necessary that all members of the Commission should participate in all decisions. The Commission can sit and function in Benches like the High Courts and the Supreme Court[3].

The article 324 vests the superintendence, direction, and control of all elections to the Parliament and Legislative Assemblies and election of the President and Vice President in the election commission. Besides, the article 324 has to be read along with the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and Representation of the People Act, 1951. In the absence of parliamentary legislation and rules framed under it and the commission is free to pass any appropriate orders relating to conduct of elections where the election commission exercises quasi-judicial powers it must follow the principles of natural justice.[4]

The election commission also exercises public functions which are administrative in nature. Its assessment of law-and-order situation in a constituency and adequate machinery to conduct free and fair elections should ordinarily prevail.[5] The expression “conduct of elections” is wide enough to include the power of the election commission to require details of expenditure incurred by political parties for the scrutiny of the election commission.[6]

The President shall appoint such Regional Commissioners as he may consider necessary to assist the election commission at the time of each general election to the House of People or to the Legislative Assembly of each State, etc. Their appointments shall be made after consulting the election commission. The conditions of service and tenure of the office of the election commissioner and the Regional Commissioners shall be determined by the President. These however will be subject to any law made by Parliament. The chief election commissioner and election commissioners have tenure of six years or up to the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier. They enjoy the same salary and perks as available to Judges of the Supreme Court of India.

The Chief Election Commissioner may be removed from his office merely in like manner and on like grounds as a Judge of the Supreme Court and his conditions of service shall not be varied to his disadvantage after his appointment. This ensures independence of the chief election commissioner and other commissioners can be removed from office by the President only on the recommendation of the chief election commissioner.[7] Clearly the chief election commissioner is granted the same constitutional protection against removal as Supreme Court Judge, the other election commissioner have this protection through the chief election commissioner. The chief election commissioner’s power to make a recommendation for the removal of an election commissioner was exercised in February 2009 by N. Gopalaswami, the chief election commissioner who made a detailed report to the President on the partisan behaviour of election commissioner N. Chawla and recommended his removal. Unfortunately, there was no discussion or public debate on the contents of report. The ground for rejection of the report by the President are also not clear. Since the political party in power was allegedly being favoured by the “errant” commissioner and it was necessary that a detailed examination of the report should has been made by the president and cogent reasons have been given for rejection.

The subsequent announcement of the “errant” commissioner as the chief election commissioner after the expiry of the term of N. Gopalaswami without such detailed examination casts a shadow on the independence of the election commission. It is in public interest that the conduct of elections is done in a fair and impartial manner by election commission without favouring any political party. Any charge of bias by an election commissioner in favour of the political party in power which has been investigation by the chief election commissioner after giving an opportunity of hearing to the concerned election commissioner and reported to the President cannot, it is submitted and be examined by the Government headed by the political party. In such a situation the President must apply her own mind to the report before accepting or rejecting the recommendation of the chief election commissioner.

There is no constitutional bar on the chief election commissioner making such a recommendation near the time of holding general elections, although this should be avoiding if it is possible to pre-pone or post-pone the report and the recommendation. N. Gopalaswami gave a public explanation of why he could not submit the report earlier. He also could not submit the report later as his term was coming to an end. The power to recommend such removal must be exercised by the chief election commissioner on intelligible and cogent considerations that have a bearing on the effective functioning of the Commission.[8] The Constitution creates merely the office of the chief election commissioner, leaving to the President to create additional offices, if and when necessary. It has power to cancel an entire election.[9]

The Election Commission is assisted by deputy election commissioners. They are drawn from the civil service and appointed by the commission with tenure system. They are assisted in turn by the secretaries, joint secretaries, deputy secretaries and undersecretaries posted in the secretariat of the commission. At the state level, the Election Commission is assisted by the chief electoral officer who is appointed by the chief election commissioner in consultation with the state government. Below this, at the district level the collector acts as the district returning officer. He appoints a returning officer for every constituency in the district and presiding officer for every polling booth in the constituency.[10]

There is no separate election commission for states. This is done with a view to securing uniformity and removing the possibility of the local Governments indirectly influencing the commission. On the other hand, the State Government might exercise undue influence on the commission and deprive some of the citizens of their right to vote. The chief election commissioner is to be appointed by the President subject to law made in that regard by Parliament. The election commission any in the last ten years has shown independence and integrity, conducting free and fair elections. This tradition of independence coupled with constitutional provisions protecting the chief election commissioner against arbitrary removal by the executive should nurture this tradition of independence and integrity and ensure free and fair elections. It shall have merely a skeleton staff. The President or the Governor shall when requested by the commission make available such staff as may be necessary. This does away with the unnecessary duplication of administrative expenses.

RECOGNITION OF NATIONAL AND STATE POLITICAL PARTIES BY THE ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA

The recognition granted by the Commission to the parties determines their right to certain privileges such as allocation of the party symbols, provision of time for political broadcasts on the state-owned television and radio stations and access to electoral rolls. Further, the recognized parties need only one proposer for filing the nomination. Also, these parties are allowed to have forty “star campaigners” during the time of elections and the registered unrecognized parties are allowed to have twenty “star campaigners”. The travel expenses of these star campaigners are not included in the election expenditure of the candidates of their parties. Every national party is allotted a symbol exclusively reserved for its use throughout the country. Similarly, every state party is allotted a symbol exclusively reserved for its use in the state or states in which it is so recognised. On the other hand, a registered unrecognised party may select a symbol from a list of free symbols. In other words, the Commission specifies certain symbols as ‘reserved symbols’ which are meant for the candidates set up by the recognised parties and others as ‘free symbols’ which are meant for other candidates.[11]

Conditions for Recognition as a National Party –

• If it secures six per cent of valid votes polled in any four or more states at a general election to the Lok Sabha or to the legislative assembly and it wins four seats in the Lok Sabha from any state or states.
• If it wins two per cent of seats in the Lok Sabha at a general election and these candidates are elected from three states.
• If it is recognised as a state party in four states.

Conditions for Recognition as a State Party –

• If it secures six per cent of the valid votes polled in the state at a general election to the legislative assembly of the state concerned, and it wins two seats in the assembly of the state concerned.
• If it secures six per cent of the valid votes polled in the state at a general election to the Lok Sabha from the state concerned and it wins one seat in the Lok Sabha from the state concerned.
• If it wins three per cent of seats in the legislative assembly at a general election to the legislative assembly of the state concerned or three seats in the assembly, whichever is more.
•  If it wins one seat in the Lok Sabha for every 25 seats or any fraction thereof allotted to the state at a general election to the Lok Sabha from the state concerned.
• If it secures eight per cent of the total valid votes polled in the state at a General Election to the Lok Sabha from the state or to the legislative assembly of the state. This condition was inserted in 2011.

The number of recognised parties keeps on changing on the basis of their performance in the general elections. On the eve of the seventeenth Lok Sabha general elections (2019), there were 7 national parties, 52 state parties and 2354 registered unrecognised parties in the country. The national parties and state parties are also known as all India parties and regional parties respectively.

CHALLENGES BEFORE THE ECI

Conducting general elections in a nation is considered as one of the toughest task especially in a largest democratic nation like India. The ECI faces many challenges from the various spheres such as –

1.  Criminalisation of Politics – The criminalisation of politics has conducted to the misapply of money and power. In such a situation, the candidate who has muscle power and more money he would take a better chance to get the election ticket for contesting and over the last couple of decades, many elected representatives were alleged cognizable offences registered against them. It is tough to expect free and fair elections and law breakers would become the law makers.
2. Money Power – In politics money power has become extensive from everyday party activity to candidate choices and day to day constituting of government’s policies manipulated for private gain in ruling party machinery and affecting party desertion. The incorporation of anti-social elements in the legislative assemblies have thinned the essence of democracy and led to a delicate electoral system. It has a deleterious influence on the elections in the nation.
3. Communalism – In India many political parties were constituted on the communal basis. Political leaders always encourage communalism to get votes during elections and they confer the election tickets a candidate who is belonging to the majority community in that constituency. It has impaired for our democratic system and voters are procured as saleable commodities. Besides, castes and religions have a momentous influence on the endmost wrong voting conduct and election results.
4. Vote Bank Politics – The political leaders elected on the religious and caste lines are appropriate to show favours to the supporters of their caste and religion. It has been seen and often reported that the employees preparing electoral rolls sometimes voluntarily disregard of certain section of voters by their names, religions, castes and not invading them in the electoral rolls at the assertion of interested political parties. However, Indian politics is all about winning elections and they merely see the winnability of candidates. Therefore, all political parties put appeasing on their particular groups as they could not afford to lose their votes during elections.
5. Lack of Awareness Among the Citizens – The ECI faces a lot of problems due to the lack of instructions and awareness among the voters during the time of elections. Many people remain unaware of the Model Code of Conduct issued by the ECI. Hence, it becomes crucial that the citizens are properly educated about the code, rules and regulations concerning how to exercise their political right through the vote. This will enable them to understand what to do and what not to do.

India is regarded as one of the largest democracy across the world and due to its frequent elections and the voters develop a kind of electoral tiredness. Even though, dead and non-appearance voters could be impersonated with the collusion of their families and some polling officers. Moreover, many candidates in the split for elections is said to be the giving out defect of electoral system in India due to it impairs the chance of good candidates winning the elections. All these defects of our electoral system influence by our political analysts to rumpus for electoral reforms so that our democratic structure obtains stability and the representatives elected may provide dedicated service to the nation and its people.

CONCLUSION

India’s democracy and elections are the two sides of the same coin that is safeguarded by the Election Commission of India. The attainment of political recommendations in our nation especially relies upon powerful and deliberate collaborations and the blend of the electorates that the political parties and the constituent mechanism. Therefore, an independent autonomous body like the ECI is crucial for conducting free and fair elections in a democratic nation like India. Over the years, the ECI was conducted a number of noteworthy electoral reforms to build up the democracy and enhance the freeness and fairness of elections in India. These reforms are entirely appropriate and admirable. However, our system is still trouble by many misconducts for winning votes and political parties’ resort to illegal methods and corrupt practices. Those maladies encourage the anti-social elements to enter the electoral split due to lack of strict implementations of law. In order to put down these unfair tendencies, there is a require reinforcing the hands of the ECI and to confer it more legal and institutional powers for its conducting. The ECI ought to be entrusted with powers to punish and omit to participation in election those errant politicians who infringe and violate the electoral laws.

The ECI has been taken several new initiatives in the last few years. These are schemes for utilizing of state-owned Electronic Media for broadcast/telecast by Political parties, examining the criminalization of politics, computerization of electoral rolls, conferring the electors with Identity Cards, clarify the procedure for maintenance of accounts and filling of the same by candidates and a diversity of measures for strict compliance of Model Code of Conduct for conferring a level playing field to contestants during the elections in India.

SOMASREE BAKSHI

BA.LLB University of Calcutta

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[1] The Indian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 53, No. 1, January – March, 1992.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Election Commission of India v. Dr. Subramaniam Swamy, (1996) 4 SCC 104.

[4] Uma Ballav Rath v. Maheshwar Mohanty, (1999) 3 SCC 357.

[5] T.N. Seshan v. Union of India, (1995) 4 SCC 611.

[6] Common Cause (A Reg. Society) v. Union of India, (1996) 2 SCC 752.

[7] Art. 324 of the Constitution of India.

[8] T.N. Seshan v. Union of India, (1995) 4 SCC 611.

[9] Mohindra Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commr. (1978) 4 SCC 1.

[10] M. Laxmikanth, Indian Polity, pp. 42.4, 42.5, (McGraw Hill Education Private Limited, 6th edn., 2020).

[11] Mamta Rao, Constitutional Law, (Eastern Book Company Private Limited, 2nd edn., 2021).