Elections to Parliament is still some time away but the concerns from various quarters over the recent bribery scams involving Members of Parliament has propelled to the fore once again the theme of electoral reforms. Such an important issue is usually taken up only at the dawn of election time so much so that it becomes more of a public relation exercise for politicians. If enough time is invested on the issue and similar interest generated by the concerned authorities, particularly the election commission and political parties, only then can there be a productive outcome towards taking real measures to reform the system inside out. One should therefore welcome the lead taken by the country’s First Citizen, President A P J Abdul Kalam who has once again raised the issue of criminalization of politics and has made several suggestions in order to cleanse the election process so as to regenerate qualitatively better individuals who can run the country.
One of the suggestion which has been there now for quite sometime is that any person against whom charge sheet has been filed and charges framed by the court should not be allowed to contest election. No headway has been made on this score simply because politicians and the political parties they represent just cannot do away with the source (money & muscle power) of strength that propels them to power in the first place. One way to go about it is for political parties to exercise self restraint while allocating party tickets because at the end most candidates are selected by the parties themselves. For this they would have to do a proper study of the candidates they choose. The cleansing exercise can begin at this level.
Another threat posed to the functioning of a vibrant democracy is the adulterated electoral process which is one of the most important reasons for the spread of corruption. To contest an election is becoming costlier by the day. Politicians garner huge financial resources from various quarters to finance elections. Elected at the behest of money power, they would like to reap suitable dividends for the investment they make. It is also an open secret that powerful lobbies generously contribute to the election funds of different political parties and therefore, in effect, influence the policies of the government in their favour. This politician-bureaucrat-business-industrialist nexus has become a powerful breeding ground for corruption.
To tackle this menace, a comprehensive package of electoral reforms including the State funding of election is of paramount importance. An all party meeting should work out a consensus on the issue based on the recommendations of the Indrajit Gupta Committee, which has given some practical suggestions on state funding. In the wake of the cash-for-questions scam instead of taking a high moral ground, the leadership in the political parties would do better if they are able to get to the root of the problem rather than undertaking a mere cosmetic exercise to punish a few individual MPs. At the end of the day it is the mounting cost of fighting elections, which is at the very root of political corruption. Political parties should not fight shy of taking the initiative of electoral reforms particularly in the area of poll campaign finance. Apathy and cynicism on their part will only perpetuate the status-quo.
