The Hindu Business Line : Electoral reforms

Till he was the Chief Election Commissioner of India, Mr T. N. Seshan was a thorn in the flesh for politicians, especially those who fell foul of the law where electoral practices were concerned. He was unsparing of the high and mighty and rendered yeoman service to the country in ensuring that malpractices in any form was punished and severely too.

Cleansing the system

The much mellowed former CEC was in Bangalore recently to launch a campaign “Vote Bengaluru” which seeks to improve the electoral process in Bangalore, an initiative that gains significance and relevance in the light of the fact that the State will shortly be going to the polls.

Mr Seshan again harped on Government funding of elections and emphasised that this would go a long way in cleansing the electoral system. He also averred that democracy is a costly affair and that the government should not mind spending crores of rupees on elections.

Need for transparency

Mr Seshan also lamented that most voters are even unaware of how to get their names included in the electoral roles and yet another lacuna is the secrecy involving voters list, which the former CEC feels should be put on the Net.

These suggestions coming from someone who has seen and experienced, first-hand, corruption, and the rampant reign of money power, come election time, ought to be taken seriously.

While most of the CECs right from Peri Sastry to Seshan to Lyngdoh and the present incumbent Mr N. Gopalaswamy have been effective in taking the reforms process forward, the very fact that Mr Seshan has mentioned state funding, transparency in electoral rolls, and so on, means that much remains to be done. Yet, should the state fund elections?

Checking corruption

Mr Seshan’s inference that this would check corruption (read black money) implies that once the state releases funds to candidates to fight the polls, the candidates would refrain from spending or enticing voters with bagfuls of money or other inducements. If this practice is checked, Mr Seshan’s suggestion can be implemented as a thousand crore or so once in five years (provided Governments run their full course) would not make much of a dent on the country’s economy.

But as the ex-CEC himself would admit, these things are easier said than done, especially in our country where corruption continues to rule the roost and politics remains its bedrock.

(The author is a Chennai-based freelance writer.)

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