Electoral reforms could involve review of Anti Defection Law, replacing NOTA with NTC & Min. Polling %

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝑬𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑳𝒂𝒘𝒔 𝒏𝒆𝒆𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 2024 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒗𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒈𝒐 𝒃𝒚 ‘𝑵𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝑽𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝑰 𝑽𝒐𝒕𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝑺𝒖𝒓𝒆’

DAYA SAGAR

NOTA option had been included by Election Commission after 2013 on the intervention of judiciary in response to a writ petition { People’s Union For Civil … vs Union of India & Anr Writ Petition (CIVIL) No. 161 of 2004) filed in the court when the political governments / masters had not responded to some proposals in that/ similar direction. The Court had also observed something like that people of high moral and ethical values should be chosen as people’s representatives for proper governance of the country and provisions like NOTA can compel political parties to nominate a sound candidate. But how far the political parties have taken leads from that remains under a question mark.
In 2022 elections to Bihar Legislative Assembly 7,06,252 (1.68%) voters used their NOTA ( None Of The Above )option where as All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen Party which contested in Seemanchal Region of Bihar had polled only 5,23,279 votes (1.24%) and won 5 MLA seats. There have been such like large NOTA votes in other state elections also. There could be cases where a candidate wins by a few hundred votes and had the NOTA voted for other candidate the result would have been different.
NOTA button on the EVMs gives a choice to a voter citizen for not casting his vote for any of the contesting candidates declaring that none of the contesting candidates is of the choice of the ‘Voter’ or is not deemed fit to be elected in one’s opinion. To be brief The NOTA vote does not hold any electoral value, even if a majority of votes are cast for NOTA in a constituency still the candidate with the largest vote share would be declared the winner. Some people argue that the implementation of NOTA with highest votes in a constituency as a choice for re election will drive up election expenses.
Before NOTA was introduced there was also a debate ( still it is going on in non political arena) for introducing a system of Negative value Vote and in the mean time there had been introduction of NOTA (None Of The Above). Going by the way the system has so far behaved it could also be inferred that NOTA has suited more to those who were in the ‘business of politics’ and hence they allowed it go even when it has been proved over the years that NOTA has proved to be more of wasting ‘one’s right to vote than doing any good since NOTA puts no bad candidate to disadvantage since all the candidates are denied ‘with one’ vote.
So, voter must be given the option/ choice to elect someone or atleast to ensure that a bad candidate ( as per one’s knowledge) is not elected by exercising the option of ‘Not This Candidate (NTC)’ there by casting a negative vote for a particular candidate so as to reduce his / her votes by one which will give advantage to others over the ‘Bad’. May be ‘the’ NTC button compels political parties to nominate a sound and representing candidate for election which the NOTA has not been able to do.
As said earlier, ofcourse the NOTA vote does not hold any electoral value and even if a majority of votes are cast for NOTA, the candidate with the largest vote ( next highest to NOTA) would be declared the winner by ECI under the present system. With the present system in place some suggestions have been made to atleast in such cases go for re election.
A multiparty democratic system of governance based on adult franchise was installed in India after independence from British rule in 1950 and first elections to the legislature were held in 1952. There after there have been no significant reforms in the electoral process except that some cosmetic reforms like the Anti Defection Law that was initiated by Rajiv Gandhi Government in 1985 in view of the problem of instability caused by legislators in the Parliamentary System of Governance for which Tenth Schedule was inserted in the Constitution of India in 1985 ( Tenth Schedule : Articles 102(2) < A person shall be disqualified for being a member of either House of Parliament if he is so disqualified under the Tenth Schedule> and 191(2) < person shall be disqualified for being a member of the Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council of a State if he is so disqualified under the Tenth Schedule >]
Provisions as to disqualification on ground of defection ) and like the option of ‘None of the Above’ ( NOTA) in the symbols on the ballot paper / buttons for elections to legislature ( that too on the intervention of court in 2013 ). The Anti defection law lays down the process by which elected legislators may be disqualified on the grounds of defection by the Presiding Officer of a legislature based on a petition by any other member of the House. But both the reforms have not yielded much good, rather no good.
The Anti Defection law has so far remained in effective , it has remained trapped in legal / legislative controversies. Allegations of horse trading ‘done’ or feared to be likely done have gone un-investigated even where such allegations have been made by people holding constitutional positions. The provisions available in the law have been used by some for promoting defections in opponent parties making 1/3rd of the elected legislators ( separate )/ defect and then join another party against with the voter who had elected them had voted. Experience has shown that the those who encourage defections are not less bad than the ones who defect. The examples are not unknown and hence need not be quoted here. It is already 37 years since Anti Defection law has been there in place and scores of controversial “Defections” engineered could be quoted. So there is utmost need for reviewing the Anti Defection Law for incorporating amendments / changes so as to (i) provide for immediate intervention by the Apex Court (i) the defecting legislature or group of legislatures should not the allowed to join the government of the day or the party / alliance in power for six months , may be allowed to extend support to the Government from outside even if the group gets recognised as a separate party (iii) and like.
At occasions debates have been also initiated on other needed electoral reforms like fixing some minimum vote percentage for one to get elected like there is condition for forfeiture of ‘election’ security’ of a contestant but since we have no any public institution operating independent of the influence of the political leadership the requests / proposals / suggestions for needed corrections have remained under the ‘carpets’. May it be in Kashmir valley or anywhere in India holding the election results valid even in constituencies (local bodies / state legislatures/ Lok Sabha) where there is Polling of near Zero% or just 10-15 % raises questions on the present system of parliamentary democracy as we have in India today. For example if during elections to Lok Sabha and state Legislative Assemblies even less than just 10 % people cast their vote still the person getting the highest votes, may be only a few votes ( even one vote) out of a voter list of 20,00000 or 1,00000, can get elected, what a joke with the democratic system.
Even in some Local body elections, where many people even individually know each other, there may be no poll or negligible poll but still person with even no (zero) vote out of 500-1000 vote has got elected in the past as representative; even one person led nomination papers &zero voting % a person gets elected, one would ask who elected him/ her ? So, a serious discourse in this regard as well need be held in India.
We must set a minimum voting percentage as the qualifying standard ( say 34 %) and in case the voting for a constituency is less than “that” the elections could be held again at appropriate time . Let there be even administrator / governor rule / President rule to manage the local bodies or the state , or let some seats remain vacant in the Lok Sabha / Legislative assembly / Local body instead of having fake public representatives. Some may argue that this will involve extra cost burden but they must also understand that only a fair, just and representative government is the spirit behind electing public representatives in a democracy and no cost can be dearer that in case representative is not ‘true’. So, elections where people do not vote in real numbers no candidate should be taken as elected and if needed the body i.e legislature/ Lok Sabha should be constituted only when at least 1/3rd of the total seats are elected. Otherwise President Rule / Governor rule would be better than government with no real representatives.
(The author is Sr Journalist / Analyst Jammu & Kashmir Affairs [email protected]).