Pune, 16th July 2023: The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the Maharashtra Election Watch (MEW) are organizing the 16th Annual National Conference at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (GIPE) on the 15th and 16th July 2023. On the first day of the two-day event, the discussion focused on the urgent requirement of addressing the most pressing problems in the electoral and political arena. State Election Watch coordinators from all the states in India participated on the first day of the event, along with members from various civil society groups, social activists, journalists, retired bureaucrats, retired judges, advocates, political party representatives, academicians and students from across India.
Prof Trilochan Sastry (Chairman, Founder Member & Trustee- ADR/NEW), welcomed the Guest of Honour – Dr Nasim Zaidi, former Chief Election Commissioner, other eminent personalities, the distinguished panelists and all participants attending the National Conference. He briefly spoke about the necessity of clean politics, outlining the rise in criminal records of elected representatives from 22% earlier to 43% now. He also raised concerns about the emerging issues in electoral politics such as fake news, hate speech, divisive politics and the role of digital media in exacerbating these. He concluded his speech by reiterating the need to address these issues and work towards establishing a healthy society.
This was followed by the opening remarks of Dr Ajit Ranade (Founder Member & Trustee – ADR/NEW, Vice-Chancellor of GIPE). He began by talking about the history of the Gokhale Institute – the venue of ADR’s National Conference. He spoke about the relevance of clean politics, transparency and accountability over the years and made references to speeches of previous prime ministers such as Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee on electoral and political reforms. While expressing his concerns on the current political scenario, he quoted Russell Dickerson, ‘The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming.’
Dr Ranade welcomed and introduced Dr Nasim Zaidi. Dr Zaidi inaugurated the two-day conference and delivered the keynote address.
In his keynote address, Dr Zaidi appreciated the ongoing efforts of ADR and National Election Watch (NEW) for their continuous work in the area of electoral and political Reforms. He gave a special mention to ADR’s website, myneta.info, as a significant repository of electoral data on the background details of candidates and the financing of political parties. He emphasized the need for change in the current electoral system and the requirement for a constitutional review of the First-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system. He raised several important topical issues in the field of electoral and political reforms which are briefly mentioned below:
- Independence of the Election Commission of India and the recent Supreme Court judgment in favour of the collegium-like appointments of the EC. He hoped for a neutral Election Commission.
- Growing concerns regarding the rising criminality in electoral politics and deemed it against constitutional values.
- Absence of power of deregistration of political parties by the Election Commission of India. In this regard, he mentioned the case pending in the High Court – a Lok Prahari petition before the Lucknow Bench to disqualify candidates with criminal records by Returning Officer.
- He emphasized the need for the participation of women and youth. He talked about how there has been an increase in the number of women voters, which is now gradually reaching at par with the male voters. In contrast, the rise in women candidates in elections and women’s representation in Parliament and state assemblies is dismal, which is a matter of concern.
- Regarding youth participation, he said that the youth population is around 4.5 cr, out of which only 1.3 cr are registered voters, suggesting that 70% do not even register themselves as voters, which is worrisome and must be addressed through youth awareness and campus ambassador programs at colleges and universities.
- Need for regular revision/purification of electoral rolls as voter suppression happens most at this level.
Dr Zaidi concluded by stating that electoral reforms are proceedings we have to continue to struggle with and added that democracy cannot thrive without internal democracy within political parties.
This was followed by the speech of Justice Narendra Chapalgaonkar, former Judge of Bombay High Court, on the topic “Challenges to Indian Democracy”. At the outset, he pointed out the role of religion and caste in electoral politics and the implications. Following this, he raised the issue of the election expenditure with candidates spending crores on poll campaigns. He emphasized the need for the declaration of wealth before and after elections. He also suggested that the rules made by the Election Commission such as constitutional provisions, and statutes should be made useful and truthful. In the end, he said that democracy is not only about talking, it must be felt in behaviour by dealing with every citizen.
Following the speech of Justice Chapalgaonkar, Dr Zaidi released the report on ‘Analysis of Sitting MLAs from 28 State Assemblies and 2 Union Territories of India 2023’ and ADR’s Annual Report for FY 2022-23.
The report on Analysis of Sitting MLAs from 28 State Assemblies and 2 Union Territories of India 2023 can be accessed here.
The first day of the conference consisted of panel discussions on various important issues related to electoral and political reforms like ‘The Continuing Trend of Money Power and Criminality in Indian Politics: What is the way forward?’, ‘Decoding the Controversial Electoral Bonds Scheme: How long for Supreme Court to adjudicate?’, ‘Bringing Political Parties under RTI: Fostering inner-party democracy’, and ‘Local and Urban Governance’.
The session on “The Continuing Trend of Money Power and Criminality in Indian Politics: What is the way forward?”, was chaired by Prof. Trilochan Sastry. Speaking on the issue, Shri J.S. Saharia, former Chief Secretary and former State Election Commissioner of Maharashtra, started his presentation by highlighting the importance of the elections at the Panchayat level, wherein more than 30 lakh representatives are elected across the country. However, the elections at the local level do not receive as much attention as those at the state and national levels. He emphasized on the need for independence of the Election Commissioners as most of the SECs feel obligated towards their appointee, the need for inner-party democracy and regular submission of financial reports of parties.
Dr Sanjay Paswan, Member, Bihar Legislative Council, said it is important to understand what is going on in the garb of voting today. Commenting on the dismal political scenario, he recommended that in addition to political reforms; social, educational and economic reforms are also important.
Also on the panel was Mr Vijai Sardesai, a Member of the Goa Legislative Assembly, who pointed out that criminalization of politics is a danger to democracy and it comes from criminalization in the society. He added that candidates should get elections on the basis of their merit and not on factors such as caste, religion or family history.
Chairing the next session on ‘Decoding the Controversial Electoral Bonds Scheme: How long for the Supreme Court to adjudicate?’, was Prof Jagdeep Chhokar, Founder-Member and Trustee of ADR.
Prof Rajeev Gowda, National Spokesperson of All India Congress Committee (AICC), said that a measure to improve transparency in electoral funding is needed. He added that for a clean system, clean money is needed and for clean money, public funding is needed.
While commenting on the Electoral Bond Scheme, Prof S.N. Misra of KIIT School of Management, stated that several amendments made in the Finance Acts in 2017 legalised unaccounted money. Political parties are not mandated to report full details of donations received through electoral bonds in their annual reports.
Mr Nitin Sethi, Co-founder of the Reporters’ Collective, highlighted the presence of quid pro quo in political financing. He said that we cannot stop the black money in politics because that black money is treated as an investment by corporates. It is the corporates who win the elections and not the political party.
The third key address of the first day of the National Conference was delivered by Dr Dalip Singh, IAS (Retd), on “Importance of NOTA and measures to improve Indian Elections”.
Dr Singh, pointed out that the first time NOTA was used, 15 lakh voters opted for it (less than 1.5% of total votes). He said that NOTA encouraged people to go to vote. He gave the examples of Maharashtra and Haryana. The Maharashtra State Election Commissioner passed an order that if NOTA wins, the election will be held again. In the case of Haryana, it was notified that any candidate who scores fewer votes than NOTA will not be eligible to refile the nomination or contest the poll.
Prof Jagdeep Chhokar, who was chairing this session, said that NOTA can be more effective if we put pressure on the Election Commission and the State Election Commission (SEC). He emphasized on the need to involve more and more SECs in empowering NOTA.
Another very important panel discussion was on “Bringing Political Parties under RTI: Fostering inner-party democracy”, chaired by Dr Vipul Mudgal, Trustee of ADR who started the session by saying that a political party is an entity. It is like an elephant in the room.
Speaking on the problem of political corruption and where the corruption money goes, Mr TR Raghunandan, Director of Avantika Foundation, talked about the influx of corrupt money through big kickbacks, electoral bonds etc. He said that the corruption money is used to bribe voters, and media for favourable reports, and also to organise election campaigns. He mentioned that we are in a situation of hyper-corruption and a country needs around 40-50 years to get rid of this.
Political parties must work in a transparent manner and in ensuring this transparency, RTI is just a single tool, said Mr. Venkatesh Nayak, Director – Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), a panelist in this session
Prof Narayana A of Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, said that politics is getting professionalized day by day. Transparency does not automatically translate into accountability. He added that RTI alone cannot clean the system.
The final session of the day was a discussion on “Local and Urban Governance”. Chairing this session, Maj. Gen. Anil Verma (Retd.), Head of ADR, stated that local government is the foundation of a strong democracy.
Ms. Malti Sagane, President – Mahila Rajsatta Aandolan, said that democracy is based on four things – power, party, politics and elections. Emphasizing on the importance of women representation, she said that women come into politics through reservations due to a lack of access to monetary support.
Dr. Ujjaini Halim, West Bengal State Co-ordinator of ADR, mentioned that lack of transparency is an issue but lack of awareness among the voters is a bigger issue.
Talking of his overall experience, Shri Sudhir Pal, Chief Functionary of Manthan Yuva Sansthan and Jharkhand State Coordinator of ADR, talked about the importance of strengthening Panchayati Raj Institutions. He said that the government must be pressured to give panchayats their own space to operate.
The first day of the National Conference concluded with Maj. Gen. Anil Verma (Retd.), Head – ADR and NEW, thanking all the panelists, participants, the ECI, GIPE and ADR for making this event a success.
