To whip or not

The Election Commission is within its rights to find ways to make the election for the country's Presidentship fairer. But before that, it ...

The Election Commission is within its rights to find ways to make the election for the country8217;s Presidentship fairer. But before that, it should address the basic question whether changes in the present system are indeed warranted.

A couple of months ago when Election Commissioner G.V.G. Krishnamurty shared his private thoughts with the public on freeing the Presidential election from the whips of political parties, few would have considered it a serious proposal. This is particularly so since most political parties had taken umbrage at the Election Commissioner8217;s idea.

Now that Krishnamurty has quoted scripture and verse to buttress his point, it is more or less clear that the Commission will persist with the idea in the next election. Surely the Commission cannot argue that all the past Presidential elections were not free and fair since political parties had issued whips. The argument that a whip is tantamount to coercing the voter to exercise his or her franchise in a particular manner does not hold water.

In a parliamentary democracy, political parties have a right to nominate or support a candidate of their choice and they also have a right to ask their members to toe the party line. It is on this very basis that the whip has a legislative and legal sanction. To argue, as Krishnamurty does, that in a Presidential election a legislator votes on behalf of his constituents and not the party he represents is to indulge in hair-splitting.

If that indeed is the case, whips should be made unlawful whether it is in relation to voting in a parliamentary debate or on a Bill. Needless to say, such a step will strike at the root of the party system that has evolved over the years in this country.

In any case, the whole issue is a case of much ado about nothing. It is through secret ballot that the President is chosen and there is no way in which a party can find out how its members voted. Thus the issue of a whip is only of academic interest. Even so, what is unacceptable is Krishnamurty8217;s interpretation of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections Act, 1952, to disallow whips.

In doing so, he is following in the footsteps of his former boss T.N. Seshan who could make forays into virtually every field by interpreting his powers in the manner that suited him. Such omnibus interpretation has dangerous implications as, for instance, when a judge finds virtue in one of the Directive Principles and seeks to enforce it.

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In trying to score a point, such people do not adopt a holistic view so much so that they give short shrift even to the principles that guided the founding fathers of the Constitution in framing the relevant rules. But then their purpose is not so much to serve the interests of the Constitution as to subserve their own interests.

Equally specious is the wisdom in pressing the government to increase the security deposit for Presidential candidates by promulgating an ordinance. Already provisions exist to deter non-serious candidates.

In the past only once did a non-serious candidate contest the election and that was possible only because 10 members of the electoral college, mostly Jharkhand legislators, were willing to sign on the dotted line in his nomination form. The Election Commission will do well not to fritter away its energy in this fashion.