Elections in India

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Elections- A Universal process of Decentralization

Decentralization of power is one of the basic features of any democracy. Countries like India, USA, Canada, France, which are considered as the largest democracies of the world, has a set of mechanism of sharing its power. Election is one of those mechanisms in democracy, which provides stability to the government. In democracy, the government gets legitimacy if it is elected by its citizens through a fair process.

            Although, forms of government may be different in democracies, like Parliamentary form of government, Presidential form of government etc. However, the process of forming the government should be universally accepted, and this universal acceptance or legitimacy comes with a fair process. This fair process is Election.

            Election provides choice of leadership, political participation, which enables a person to raise their voice, their resentment to the governing party. It is a self-corrective system in which if there was any mistake made by the citizen in their choice of leadership, gets corrected next time.

Process of Election in India

India is the largest democratic country of the world. The modern Indian Nation State came into existence on 15th of August 1947. It is a constitutional democracy with a parliamentary system of government, and at the heart of the system lies a commitment to hold regular, free and fair elections. The architects of India made the provisions of Election, in the Indian Constitution for the formation of government, so that a long sustaining democracy could be set up. These elections determine the composition of the government, the membership of the two Houses of Parliament, the State and Union Territory Legislative Assemblies, and the Presidency and Vice-Presidency.

            In India, Elections are conducted according to the constitutional provisions, supplemented by laws made by, Parliament. The major laws are Representation of the People Act, 1950, which mainly deals with the preparation and revision of electoral rolls, and the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which deals, in detail, with all aspects of conduct of elections and post-election disputes.

 Constitutional provisions and the Election Commission

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Part XV of the Indian Constitution deals with elections, and establishes a commission for these matters. Article 324 to 329 of the constitution deals with powers, function, tenure, eligibility, etc. of the commission and the members. The Election Commission was established in accordance with the Constitution on 25^th January 1950. The Supreme Court of India has held that where the enacted laws are silent or make insufficient provision to deal with a given situation in the conduct of elections, the Election Commission has the residuary powers under the Constitution to act in an appropriate manner.

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Types of Election in India

    India is a country of approximately 1.43 billion people. Here, the process of electing the representatives can be seen at different levels. As India is a country of Federal structure, hence, election holds at Central, State, corporation and village levels. Majorly, there are three types of elections:

1.     General Election: - Election to constitute a new Lok Sabha or Assembly is called General Election.

2.     By-Election: -  If at any time there is a mid-term vacancy due to death or resignation of a member either in Lok Sabha or Legislative Assembly only one seat falls vacant. The election for that state is known as By-election.

3.     Mid-Term Election: - If the Lok Sabha or State Assembly is dissolved before completion of five years and the election is held to constitute new Lok Sabha or new, State Assembly, etc. is called Mid-term election.

Electoral Systems

An electoral system is defined as “the manner in which votes are translated into seats.”  There are different types of election systems in the world. We can classify these into:

1.     Majoritarian System

2.     Proportion Representation System

3.     Mixed System

Plurality or Majoritarian system: - This system is based on the principal that the candidate or party with the plurality of votes or a majority of votes is declared the winner. Such a system may use single-member districts or multi-member districts.

Proportional Representation System: -  It is the electoral system family based on the principal of translating the overall votes into a correspondence proportion of seats in an elected body. For example, a party wins 30% of the votes, will receive approximately 30 percent of seats. All proportional representative system requires the use of multi–member districts. There are two Proportional representative system: -  One is List Proportional representative system and another is Single Transferable Vote system.

Mixed System: -  In this system, voters choices are used to elect representatives using two different systems: one proportional representative and one majority. There are two kinds of mixed systems: Parallel Systems and Mixed-member proportional Systems.  As women representation on average in proportional representation systems than the majority systems, strategically designing a mixed system can be an effective way to increase the women representation.

            In order to understand the majority system, it is required to understand at what principal this system works. In this system, after votes are cast and totalled, those candidates or parties with the most votes are declared as the winner of that election contest. However, the way this is achieved in practice varies widely.

 ElectionCommission of India

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 Election Commission of India is a permanent Constitutional Body. The Election Commission was established in accordance with the Constitution on 25th January 1950. It is responsible for conducting elections to both the Houses of Parliament and State Legislatures and for the offices of President and Vice-President. Besides, it is also responsible for the preparation revision, updating and maintenance of lists of voters. It delimits constituencies for election to the Parliament and the State Legislatures, fixes the election programme and settles election disputes. It performs many other functions related to elections.

            Originally, the commission had only a Chief Election Commissioner. From 1st October, 1993, the Election Commission is a three- member body, consisting of Chief Election Commissioner and two Election Commissioners.

Appointment & Tenure of Commissioners: - 

The President appoints Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners. They have tenure of six years, or up to the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier. They enjoy the same status and service conditions as are enjoyed by the Judges of the Supreme Court of India. The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed from office only through impeachment by the Parliament.

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Electoral Process

Elections in India are conducted according to the procedure laid down by law. The following process is observed.

Notification for Election

The process of election officially begins when on the recommendation of Election Commission, the President in case of Lok Sabha and the Governor in case of State Assembly issue a notification for the election. Seven days are given to candidates to file nomination. The seventh day is the last date after the issue of notification excluding Sunday. Scrutiny of nomination papers is done on the day normally after the last date of filing nominations. The candidate can withdraw his/her nomination on the second day after the scrutiny of papers. Election is held not earlier than twentieth day after the withdrawal.

Filing of Nomination

            Structure of Government A person who intends to contest an election is required to file the nomination paper in a prescribed form indicating his name, age, postal address and serial number in the electoral rolls. The candidate is required to be duly proposed and seconded by at least two voters registered in the concerned constituency. Every candidate has to take an oath or make affirmation. These papers are then submitted to the Returning Officer designated by the Election Commission.

Security Deposit

            Every candidate has to make a security deposit at the time of filing nomination. For Lok Sabha every candidate has to make a security deposit of Rs. 25,000/- and for State Assembly Rs. 10,000. But candidates belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are required to deposit Rs. 12,500/– for if contesting the Lok Sabha elections and Rs. 5,000/– for contesting Vidhan Sabha elections. The security deposit is forfeited if the candidate fails to get at least 1/6 of the total valid votes polled.

 Scrutiny and Withdrawal

            All nomination papers received by the Returning Officer are scrutinized on the day fixed by the Election Commission. This is done to ensure that all papers are filled according to the procedure laid down and accompanied by required security deposit. The Returning Officer is empowered to reject a nomination paper on any one of the following ground:

(i)    If the candidate is less than 25 years of age.

(ii)   If he/she has not made security deposit.

(iii) If he/she is holding any office of profit.

(iv) If he/she is not listed as a voter anywhere in the country.

 

The second day, after the scrutiny of nomination papers, is the last date for the withdrawal of the candidates. In case that day happens to be a holiday or Sunday, the day immediately after that is fixed as the last day for the withdrawal.

 Election Campaign

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            Campaigning is the process by which a candidate tries to persuade the voters to vote for him rather than others. During this period, the candidates try to travel through their constituency to influence as many voters as possible to vote in their favor. In the recent times, the Election Commission has granted all the recognized National and Regional Parties, free access to the State-owned electronic media, the All India Radio (AIR) and the Doordarshan to do their campaigning. New technology has also played a vital role to create influence among the voters. Today, all the political parties are using social media platform to promote their election campaign.

     The total free time is fixed by the Election Commission which is allotted to all the political parties. Campaigning stops 48 hours before the day of polling. A number of campaign techniques are involved in the election process. Some of these are:

a)     Holding of public meetings.

b)    Distribution of handbills, highlighting the main issues of their election manifesto (election manifesto is a document issued by political party.

c)  Social Media like, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, What's App etc. has become one of the popular methods now a day to influence the voters and change their favors.

d)     Door to door appeal by influential people in the party.

e)     Broadcasting and telecasting of speeches by various political leaders.

Model Code of Conduct

               The Election Commission of India keeps an eye on every events happening during the election. To maintain a uniformity and to get the election conducted free and fair, Election Commission of India releases certain guidelines. This guideline is known as Model Code of Conduct. During the campaign period the political parties and the contesting candidates are expected to abide by a model code of conduct evolved by the Election Commission of India on the basis of the consensus among political parties. It comes into force the moment schedule of election is announced by the Election Commission.

 

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 The code of conduct is as follows: 

a) No religious places should be used by any political parties or the contesting candidates for their election campaign. 

b) According to code of conduct, no hate speech should be there while political leaders delivering their speeches so that harmony among different communities belonging to different religions, castes and languages could be disturbed.

c) No Official machinery can be used for election work.

d) No new grants can be sanctioned; no new schemes or projects can be started once the election dates are announced. 

e) One cannot misuse mass media for partisan coverage.

Polling, Counting and Declaration of Result

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In order to conduct polling, large number of polling booths are set up in each constituency. Each booth is placed under the charge of a Presiding Officer with the Polling Officers to help the process. A voter casts his/her vote secretly in an enclosure, so that no other person comes to know of the choice he/she has made. It is known as secret ballot.

             After the polling is over, ballot boxes are sealed in the presence of agents of the candidates. Agents ensure that no voter is denied right to vote, provided the voter turns up w within the prescribed time limit.

             Although, to cast votes EVM (Electronic Voting Machine) machine was used 1982. However, It became very popular only in 21^st century. Now, EVM is used in pan India to collect the consent of the people.

       After, voting is done all the ballot boxes/EVMs are secured by the election commission and brought to a decided control center for counting. On the set day of counting, government officials start counting the votes and result gets declared by the evening of the counting day.

 Conclusion

Legitimacy of any government depends upon the acceptance of the leadership by the public. In democracy, if the government is formed by the winning contestant who has been elected through a free and fair election process gets a wider acceptance. In the constitution of India, the architects of the constitution made sure that the election process be in such a way that there would not be any challenge to the legitimacy of the government. In part XV of the Indian constitution, from article 324 to 329 electoral process has been described. A constitutional body, named Election Commission of India was framed to conduct and monitor free and fair elections in India. Election is considered as the soul of any democracy. Countries like India, USA, France, Canada, UK, Brazil etc. are the biggest democracies where election is considered as the political festivals of the democracy.

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