Stateless on Raisina Hill

On April 8, Rajya Sabha passed by voice vote the Representation of the Peoples Amendment Bill 2001. It aims at two vital changes: introduc...

On April 8, Rajya Sabha passed by voice vote the Representation of the Peoples Amendment Bill 2001. It aims at two vital changes: introducing a system of open ballot for elections to the Upper House and doing away with the requirement of being a resident of a particular state or Union territory to contest elections to the House.

It is argued that these proposed reforms may help in cleaning up Rajya Sabha elections, which in recent times have been adversely affected by the influence of money power. It is alleged that MLAs are often bought over. Since at present there is the system of secret voting, there is no way to know which MLA voted for which candidate. If the system of secret voting is replaced, one would know who voted for whom and political parties could thus have better control over their MLAs, who after all have been elected on party symbols. If a political party issues a whip, its MLAs would not dare vote against the party candidate.

There seems to be some merit in this. It would, however, be more appropriate to have a system where we retain the system of secret voting but give a political party the right to ask for the voting record of all its members.

If it is noticed that some MLAs have violated the whip, party leaders can discuss it in their own meeting where those violating the whip have a chance to express their views and opinions. The final decision may rest with the party leadership.

However, open ballots may not be effective in checking outside influence on MLAs belonging to smaller parties, since it would be relatively easier to get the requisite one-third strength to dodge the anti-defection provision. In any case, none of this stops a party leadership from being influenced by extraneous circumstances in deciding which Rajya Sabha candidate to back.

The amendment also proposes to remove the residential clause for contesting elections to the Rajya Sabha. As per constitutional provisions, anyone seeking election to the Upper House from a particular state has to be a resident of that state 8212; that is, he or she must have been enrolled as a voter in that state for the last two years.

While those elected to Lok Sabha represent the interests of the people, Rajya Sabha members are representatives of the state from which they have been elected, and as such they are supposed to protect the interests of that state in Parliament. The Upper House reflects the federal character of India by representing the units of the federation and was devised to strengthen the federal feature of the Constitution. While in the US the principle of equality of state representation has been adopted where each state has an equal number of representatives in the Senate, in India the number varies from state to state. For instance, Nagaland sends one MP and Uttar Pradesh sends 34.

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Many opposition parties had not been in favour of this proposal, but Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley emphasised that even with this reform, Rajya Sabha would retain its character as the Council of States, because the members would continue to be elected by the respective legislative assemblies.

However, if this change is incorporated, after some time we may have states which may not have any representative in Rajya Sabha while some states may have too many. Under such circumstances the interests of some states may not be represented in Rajya Sabha and the federal character of India would be diluted. Is this not a negation of a very basic principle of our Constitution? With this proposed reform, are we not seeking to make the Centre even more powerful than before vis-a-vis the states?

If this is what is aimed at, this reform may bring the desired results; but if indeed the intention is altogether different and is only aimed at cleaning up elections, we should not remove the residential clause as an eligibility criterion for seeking election to the Upper House of Parliament. If this change is implemented, and a candidate is allowed to contest elections to Rajya Sabha from a state to which he does not belong, knowingly or un-knowingly, this would have an adverse affect on the federal character of our Constitution. With new states being created, there should be serious thought on strengthening the federal character of the Indian Union.