I am grateful to Smt Jyothi Raj for inviting me to this National Conference to mark the 10th Anniversary of the Campaign for Electoral Reforms in India.
It is in the fitness of things that we remember on this occasion the yeoman service rendered to this subject by the founder of CERI, the late Shri M.C. Raj. The initiative taken by him, reflecting the perception and sentiments of very many fellow citizens, has developed a certain momentum. The first results of the signature campaign presented to us today, is reflective of it.
I personally have felt for some time that the functioning of the electoral system in our democracy, based on the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) principle has often resulted in bringing forth an elected representative who is not representative of the voting public participating in an election at various levels of our polity in the sense that in a multi-party system, he or she succeed in obtaining less or considerably less than a majority of the votes vast.
The Constituent Assembly had debated this matter in December 1948, considered various other systems in vogue in democracies the world over, and concluded that given Indian conditions, and low levels of literacy, the electorate may have difficulty in handling the alternative of proportional representation.
That was six decades earlier. Conditions have changed. Literacy level now is around 74 percent and our electorate has shown maturity in exercising their choice. The time is therefore ripe to consider options to make the system more representative.
The Law Commission of India, in its Report No. 255 of March 2015, took cognizance of this and devoted Chapter IV of the Report to it, cited Supreme Court’s 1994 judgment that the present FPTP system has ‘the merit of preponderance of decisiveness over representation’ and has resulted in simplicity and stability. It referred to its earlier Report No. 170 of May 1999 as to other suggestions and recommended a ‘hybrid pattern combining elements of both direct and indirect elections’. It recommended the Government to examine the workability of the suggestions made in the 170th Report. The latter had suggested that in addition too the existing number of seats in Lok Sabha through the present FPTR system, an additional 25 percent seats numbering 136 be added to be filled through proportional representation following the list system.
The Policy Document of 2012 of the CERI before us today suggests an alternative of 30% for FPTR and 70 for the PR. Once a debate on this is initiated, other options are bound to emerge.
I wish this conference success in its work.
Jai Hind.