Electoral Reforms

Team:

Prathamesh Amrutkar

Abhiroop Bhadra

Gopal Krishna

Gopi Krishna

Nishit Sangomla

Fairness at Play

Introducing Electoral

reforms to reduce the

influence of money

and muscle power in

politics

Whom do we vote

for?

1,460 sitting MP’s and MLA’s

with criminal background

688 of them have serious

criminal cases

162 out of 543 Lok

sabha MP’s have

criminal cases

1258 sitting MLA’s have

criminal cases

against them

55 out of 74 MLA’s of the Jharkhand

2009 assembly

had criminal cases

58% of Bihar’s MLA’s

have criminal cases

against them

48% of U.P. MLA’s have

criminal cases

against them

82% of MP’s and MLA’s of Mukti Morcha

have criminal cases against them

64% of MP’s and

MLA’s of RJD

have criminal

cases against

them

MP's with

criminal

charges

MP's

without

criminal

charges

Why do such people

get elected?

Muscle Power: We have seen Previously how many of the elected representatives

are involved in criminal activities and these tend to use their power during elections to

influence people.

Money: The richer candidates use their wealth to lure voters to vote for them this trend

is very much common in all the states of India. People don’t understand the irony that it is just a little part of their own wealth which the candidate utilizes to again rob them of what was actually theirs.

Lack of Awareness amongst voters: Voters do not look for the background and

character of an individual candidate but look at the party standing behind them.

Loyalty to a party being the main culprit here

Not exercising your right to vote: The youth and most of the educated class who

could actually make a good choice among candidates do not exercise their right to vote.

So What can we do?

A given set of questions

will be made by a team

under the guidance of

Chief Election Officer

These questions will be

disclosed to the public 24

hours before the election

day

The questions will be

selected such that it will

have both positive and

negative answers. This will

keep a check on the

influence the candidates

may have on the voters.

50% weightage will be

given to the votes casted

and 50% to these

questions.

To Reduce the

influence of

Muscle Power

Solution:3 Questions

3 out of the list of questions

will be selected and given

to the voters

The E.V.M remains same

but the voter will have to

press the button 4 times

instead of 1.

Each time a question will

be asked the voter has to

chose a candidate who is

best suitable as the answer

Examples for questions

• Which of the candidates has

done social service in the past

in that area irrespective of

having been elected or not?

The questions will be asked

in 3 languages English,

Hindi and the respective

Regional language

To Reduce

influence of

Muscle Power

Solution: 3 Questions

Each and every candidate has to make a deposit of a certain % of his declared assets

The amount collected will be divided equally among all the candidates contesting in the elections in that given constituency.

Only this money will be utilized for campaigning

To keep a check on the process bills have to be submitted by the candidates to election commission

If any discrepancies are found the candidate is made to withdraw his candidature.

To Reduce the

influence of

Money

Solution: Sharing

An independent

organization should be

constituted which will be

answerable only to the

Governor of States or the

President of India

This organization will

collect information about

all the candidates and

post it on their website

The information will also

be shared through

posters and pamphlets in

each and every

constituency about their

respective candidates

This will help us in

creating awareness

about the candidates

amongst voters

To create Awareness Solution: A-Team

We as a Team came up

with many ideas that could

be implemented like 1)

Voting will validate your

passport 2) Only when you

vote you will be entitled to

benefits given by the

government 3) The holiday

given on the election day

will be a holiday only when

you show you have made

good use of it i.e. voted.

Then we thought if we

follow any of the three

plans stated above though

we would have got people

to come out and vote but

we would have

contradicted the very idea

of freedom laid down by

our freedom fighters.

To increase the

percentage of

voting

Solution:

Conclusion: We feel that unless the Elected representatives are actually

people’s representatives also the other reforms will not be achieved because these are the people who pass the bills in the end

We can make a 100 ppt’s, share a picture about patriotism a 1000 times on Facebook, update our status on every Independence day and Republic Day but we will never be able to give back to our country what it deserves unless and until we become a part of the system

We agree that our system is a corrupted one but it is not the one that cannot be changed, Be the change you want to be

2014 General elections is a revolution and we the revolutionaries we have seen through episodes like the Delhi Gang rape case and the Anna hazzare movement against corruption that if given a chance we can get united and fight for a cause we believe in

This is the day we were waiting for, It is high time we take the place for which we were destined for

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.”

Acknowledgements:

This power point presentation is part of a collaborative work of a team of 5 enthusiastic students

We would like to thank CAG and Manthan for providing us with this opportunity and platform to showcase our ideas

Last but not the least we would like to show our appreciation for the valuable inputs provided by our friends which helped in evolution of the ideas

Thank You

Thank You