NEW DELHI: State funding is the only way to drastically cut the enormous expenditure of Rs seven billion on general elections says K Ganesan former secretary to the election commission.
It is the responsibility of the state to collect votes and not that of the candidates and the political parties Ganesan who was actively involved in the conduct of two general elections as election commission secretary told PTI in an interview.
He however ruled out compulsory voting as not being practicable in the context of Indian democracy as prima facie it could be violative of the fundamental rights of a citizen.
A citizen could also enjoy the right to refrain from voting as per his own reservations he felt Based on his experience.
Ganesan said roughly Rs 2000000 was spent by a candidate in a Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) constituency and the cost of electing one member could be about Rs 6000000 in case of a three cornered contest. Multiplicity of candidate’s added to costs.
If more than 500 members to the Lok Sabha were to be elected the expenditure would run to over Rs three billion. Added to this was the cost of organising the polls by the election commission which came to between Rs 1.5 and Rs two billion.
He said additional expenditure would depend on movement and deployment of para-military forces and the cost incurred by independent candidates.
If the state were to take over the funding of general elections this huge expenditure could be brought down to less than Rs two billion. He said.
Ganesan who had a nearly three decade long stint with the election commission said high stakes of candidates and political parties in elections in the recent past resulted in flouting of ground rules leading to corrupt practices like booth capturing intimidation of voters and poll violence.
The ground reality is that candidates and political parties are not deterred from indulging in evil and corrupt practices because any futuristic litigation in the courts challenging the elections on any of these grounds would be dilatory in nature and a long drawn out process he said.
He said by and large the election process was comparatively free fair and pure because out of more than 500000 polling stations in the country for general elections about 2000 were affected by the evil of booth capturing both reported and unreported.
Although booth capturing was not only corrupt practice but also an electoral offence Ganesan felt the evil was spreading to states like Andhra Pradesh which were not affected earlier.
The state could deploy mobile polling booths equipped with electronic voting machines in sensitive areas to enable people especially belonging to weaker sections to exercise their franchise without fear or favor Ganesan said.
He said the concept of state funding of elections and introduction of electronic voting machines was suggested by C Rajagopalchari former governor General of India as early as three decades ago to curb election malpractices.
The former election commission secretary said the state should take the responsibility of distributing voter identity slips instead of various political parties duplicating this effort and running up the costs.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 29, 1991
