THE INDIAN ELECTORAL SYSTEM IS FLAWED

  Heres' the latest BIHAR Election results analysed :

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CTcRubKUwAAe8zA.jpg

 Compare the Vote-share between 2014 LokSabha & 2015 Stae Elections :

  https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CTcRubCUcAEYnLa.jpg

WHY SUCH ANOMALY in the results ?

Let me explain why the current Indian electoral system, copied verbatim from the UK, produces sub-optimal results. The average voting level (eligible voters who actually turn up to vote, expressed as a percentage of total eligible voters) in Indian parliamentary elections is about 55-60%. The national vote share of the two leading parties, namely, Congress and BJP, is about 25-28% of the votes polled. This means that, even at the upper level of the range, they need 28% of 60% = 16.8% of the voters' support to win. OR if the opponents voters are prevented from voting( through name deletions), they will need even lower % of the voters support to win. That's all ! Let's round this off to 17%. (Of course, these numbers would vary from constituency to constituency, but not too much. We are looking at things from a national level here which is the sum of individual constituencies). 

Lok Sabha elections (1998-2009)
	Congress		BJP
	Voteshare (%)	Seats	Voteshare (%)	Seats
1998	25.82	141	25.59	182
1999	28.30	114	23.75	182
2004	26.53	145	22.16	138
2009	28.55	206	18.80	116

  So, a candidate in an election starts with 17% and adds an error margin of about 3-4%, and thus aims to get about 20-21% of the votes, completely ignoring the remaining 79-80% of the electorate. This is where the peculiarities of a hugely diverse country like India come into play. The politician, seeking to take no chances and win an expensive election campaign, uses an old short-hand method of identifying this 21% --- he goes along the pre-existing caste and religious and linguistic divides in the country because it is easier to rally people by invoking these emotive issues rather than by mobilising the electorate along income level and/or education and/or professional background. In an economically poor nation with low levels of literacy, class-based appeal is a much weaker force than a caste-religion-language-based appeal.

Now let's see what this does to the politician's behaviour. Since he knows he can win an election with only 21% voters' support, there's no reason why he should waste time and energy on the remaining 79%. So, instead of working to provide schools, roads, hospitals, policing etc, which will be of use to the entire population of the constituency, he focuses on securing exclusive benefits for his targeted 21% only. These exclusive benefits usually take the shape of securing reservations in government jobs for his 21% votebank. These reservations are along caste and religious lines, thus widening the already existing cracks in society. And our man is not the only one doing this; there are several others trying to cobble up their own votebanks. Consequently, the fissures in society which we expected to decrease as India develops, are instead further sharpened by these politicians to tighten their grip on their respective votebanks. What's worse, these politicians develop a vested interest in keeping india under-developed so that the voters are dependent on them for even very basic necessities of life. This is the main reason why even after 60 years of electoral democracy, Indian cities lack even the most basic infrastructure which is taken for granted everywhere in the developed world.

Now, let's see what we can do to fix this loophole.

India should have adopted a system which motivates politicians to make an appeal to as wide a section of the electorate as possible. This required some modification of the first-past-the-post Westminster system, which is suitable for only two-party systems. If you have a first-past-the-post election in a multi-party system in a diverse society like India, the electorate gets highly fragmented and the system produces detrimental results.

This "'wide appeal'' could be achieved by either --

(1) making voting compulsory or
(2) adopting a two phase election in which a minimum vote share is required to win. In most countries this minimum is fixed at 51%.

I know the reaction of many people will be -- "But a two phase election or compulsoy voting will be too expensive to implement''. My response is that the explicit cost of doing this, which appears large, is actually much less than the huge implicit cost of not doing this. The explicit cost if just monetary but the implicit cost is not just monetary, but it also keeps india mired in an 18th century cesspool of poverty, filth and corruption; and makes us Indians smaller men every single day.


What India under the first prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, who was an impractical daydreamer, did was to take an electoral system which evolved over centuries in a small island, through the native genius of a homogenous European society with high levels of education and a virtual two party system....and overnight implanted it into a continental-size Asian nation with a hugely diverse population that had very low levels of education among voters and very little experience of self-governance and/or electoral politics. It was quite striking to see Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of the country from where India copied its electoral system verbatim, making a case  for minimum voting share in last years  election campaign in the UK. 

 

Will electoral reform solve all problems? No, the complex problems of the world, esp of India, are never amenable to such single-track solutions. But it will go a long way in steering India's elected representatives in the correct direction. It will make them focus on development, it will disincentivise them from making divisive appeals based on caste or religion or region, it will make reduce the incorrect use of money in elections because you can buy 17% votes but you can't buy 51% votes. If the rulers are incentivised to improve their behaviour, we will soon see improved governance.
 
What about post-elections ? The requirement of vote once in 5yrs gives these politicians confidence to do whatever they want to do when in power. This will corrupt even the uncorrupted. Hence, the people should demand 'RECALL RIGHTS' - the right to recall their representative if their representative is acting in a way that is in contradiction with the interest of the people who elected him to power. The constant monitoring by the people should act as an deterrent. 

In this case also , it is likely that once in seat of power, the politicians may secretly enact an act to dilute this power of the people, as is happening now  . Hence, it is also required that any change in the constitution, at least those changes, that are likely to alter the balance of power in favor of the politicians should only be made a part of the constitution after the a general consensus of all the citizens of India after the whole content of the change is advertised and debated in public forums across the country  . Even a national referendum , may be called for on important issues , like for example the LOKPAL BILL; FDI RETAIL ;etc .