Centre for Competitive Examinations, Panjab University organises special lecture by Dharam Vir, IAS (Retd), former Chief Secretary of Haryana

Chandigarh, July 2, 2016: Centre for Competitive Examinations, Panjab University (PU) organised a special lecture by Dharam Vir, IAS (Retd), former Chief Secretary of Haryana. The former State Election Commissioner praised India as being not only the largest electoral democracy in the world both in quantitative as well as qualitative sense. Not only 553 million out of 830 million eligible voters voted in 2014 elections with record participation at 66.4 per cent, but also in terms of contestation, participation and representation, India’s democracy has done much better than most of the ‘new’ democracies. Hailing the role of the election commission of India, he credited it for its effective use of its constitutional power of ‘superintendence, direction and control’ of the electoral process that has ensured periodic and peaceful transfer of powers. He specifically pointed out the contribution of T N Seshan in making the election commission of India (ECI) to realize its constitutional autonomy and enforce it constitutional authority that has now made the ECI as the most trusted Constitutional body in India.
However at the same time the electoral process has been vitiated because of the increasing role of money, crime and religion/caste based mobilization. There has been mushrooming of the parties and non-serious candidates which have made it difficult for the electorates in India to make their electoral choices and also has led to electoral populism. Right now 34 per cent of our MPs are facing criminal proceedings against them, parties do not disclose their donations correctly nor do they are transparent in showing their electoral expenses. Then democratic parties are hardly democratic in their internal functioning as they all are becoming dynastic parties. Political parties as well as the union and state governments need to strengthen the ECI with ready cooperation during the election times and before in ensuring free elections as the ECI does not have its own personnel to manage the mammoth exercise.
What can be the bold reforms needed in the electoral system in India? Dharam Vir argued that electoral reforms are a continuous process and should be reviewed on a periodical basis to ensure that India remains a vibrant democracy. After referring and commenting on the recommendations made by the committees for electoral reforms which were headed by experts like Justice Tarkunde ,Dinesh Goswami , Indrajit Gupta, among others, Dharam Vir made the following reforms measures: Enforcement of the disclosure of criminal antecedence: Amendment needed in the Section 125A of RP Act 1951 for more stringent punishment for concealing / providing wrong information; eligibility restrictions for the candidates with criminal cases pending against them; registration of all the parties contesting should be registered with the ECI; maintenance of accounts on a regular basis; audit of accounts by an independent agency and submission to ECI; complete ban on surrogate advertisement and campaign; cyber advertisement and campaign; creating public awareness on the need to have clean and deserving candidates as law makers and allow for free ,fair and transparent elections; linkage of the election identity card with the Addhar card to stop proxy voting; common electoral roll for both the local bodies as well the state and national elections in all the states; All the elections including that for Rajya Sabha or the President/Vice President should be through electronic voting machine.
The lecture was attended by University teachers as well the students from different departments and also the students taking coaching for civil services under RUSA funding provided by U.T. administration.