Post-Anna,electoral reforms likely to get a fresh thrust

With Team Anna indicating that electoral reforms are on their future agenda,the issue which has been on the back-burner for quite some time may get a fresh impetus.

It was only in June this year that the government completed a set of regional consultations on a gamut of issues with respect to electoral reforms. These issues covered broad areas of criminalisation of politics,financing of elections,conduct and better management of elections,regulating political parties,adjudication of election disputes and review of anti-defection law that have attracted popular concern at some point of time.

While the consensus has eluded over the issues of providing right to recall the elected representatives in the middle of their term and providing the option of right to reject in the form of none of the above option to voters at the time of polling,both these issues were raised by some of the speakers at the regional consultations. These issues are likely to attract popular attention once again with Team Anna highlighting both these proposals as part of their take on electoral reforms.

According to the records of the regional consultations,Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had even supported the provision for none of the above option in EVMs. He went on to suggest that fresh elections should be held when the votes polled by none of the above exceeds the number of votes by any of the candidates.

Similar suggestions were also made by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal at the same meeting in the presence of CEC S Y Quraishi at Chandigarh in February this year.

However,at the regional consultations in Kolkata in January 2011,there were some who dissented to this view,suggesting that the neutral or negative voting is not currently desirable or easily implementable.

In fact,the Election Commission is not averse to the idea of none of the above category on the ballot papers or the EVMs as this would require changing the Conduct of Election Rules,1961 by the government. Except the name of the candidates,the rules currently bar the Commission from printing none of the above on the ballot or the EVMs.

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As for the right to recall,this will require an amendment in the Representation of People Act,1951. This issue has,however,found mention during regional consultations at Bhopal and Kolkata,but no such demand was made at the regional consultations held at Mumbai and Luncknow in January this year.

Some state governments,including Bihar,have already decided to empower the voters in the civic bodies polls to recall their elected representatives if they are not satisfied with their performance.

In March,the state Cabinet agreed to the right to recall proposal by giving its nod to the amendment to the Bihar Municipal Act.

A public interest litigation that seeks an effective implementation of election laws to give citizens the right to a negative vote is also pending in the Supreme Court.