Why the supreme
Court in India had to go to instruct the Election Commission that it should
incorporate the Right to Reject in the ballot paper. Its answer is not very far
to seek as it is the executive that has failed continuously to respond to the
wishes of the people.
When political
parties and governance itself emphasize the narrow and vested interests then
positive development of all types is hindered in complete manner. It is like
gold itself becoming a thief and starts walking out of the box, who can protect
the gold then, in similar fashion if governance pays no serious attention to
achieve the best , who has the capacity to push it to go for the best.
Supreme Court has
demonstrated that it has the capacity to reform the system when the undertakers
are themselves have taken it for granted. India is a democratic society, Nehru
was a democrat par excellence whose great advice was that we had to nurture it
in sustained manner but successive governments failed to listen these dictum of
transcendental values.
It must be
appreciated that not only the Supreme Court , media too has played a crucial
role in reforming the system. Media has highlighted the issue significantly if
any particular social welfare decision is made by the apex court.
Executive had to be
proactive but it limited itself to narrow boundaries , an usual and persistent
disease prevailing in all the developing societies.
Supreme Court in
India has brought many significant changes in the socio-politico milieu of the
country. Its great decision on the Keshavananda Bharati case where it invented
the concept of basic structure, decision on the asset declaration by the
candidates on the petition of Common Cause in 2002, implementation of CNG based transportation in Delhi in 2002 and recent one on the tainted politicians and Right to Reject suggest
that Judiciary has emerged as the main reformative institution rather than the
political executives.
Right to Reject is
a mechanism to restrict the bad people to enter the system. In the meantime
Government is under pressure to withdraw the ordinance on the allowance of
tainted politicians to enter the legislatures. Now this decision of Supreme
Court has strengthened the people’s movement against the ordinance.
This may prove an
important step in the containment of the proliferation of the criminalization
of the politics, Vohra Committee report had discussed issue of criminalization
but no serious attention was given to it. Now time seems to have arrived that
criminalization of politics be stopped with sustained efforts by all concerned.
Right to Reject may emerge an important tool in this respect.
Indian electoral
system has constitutional basis. The political parties albeit have synchronized
it according to their interests, mainly to gain the majority in the
legislature. This leads to decline of the quality of the legislature and often
promote the criminalization of the politics. The truth is that electoral system
is faced with many challenges. Among which the election of the legislator is
key issue. Political parties select those to contest the election who can win,
often quality is sacrificed. Voters have limited options as individual voter
has to elect the legislator among those which have been made available by the
political parties.
A vast section of
the citizens moreover is not analytical and carry the knowledge gap, is swayed
over the partisan interests. These all factors lower the quality. As a consequence
it has almost become difficult to find people like Nehru, Ambedkar, Lohia, Atal
Bihari, Madhu Dandwate, Indrajit Gupta, Bhupesh Gupt inside the parliament.
This malaise is
widespread. There are many eminent personalities in the country which should have
been inside this great debating platform of democracy. T N Sheshan, Sumit
Chakravorty, Dr. Anil Kumar Verma, Kiran Bedi, Sunita Narain,C Udai Bhaskar,
Narendra Dabholkar [now dead] like people, who are not only expert in their
domain of action but are also full of integrity and selfless should have been
inside the legislature and frame the policies for the Indian society. There is
no dearth of good people in the country, only need is that political parties as
a whole should select these as their candidate in the election. Law making is a
highly specialized art which requires a vast amount of knowledge, integrity,
commitment to the great universal values and interests of the people at large.
Hence the best of the country need to be included in this process.
Right to Reject
gives a chance to the common citizens that they should exercise their freedom
of speech and expression as mentioned in article 19 (1) (a) of Law of the Land. The citizens too need to realize that they have
to work hard to improve their decision making power at the time of voting. If
citizens are empowered intellectually and incorporate the critical power of the
judgment, then the best can be elected. Citizens therefore have major role in
deciding the quality of the electoral system thereby the quality of the
democracy in the country.
Right to rejection
is not a panacea to all the ills prevailing in the system but it has definitely
opened an avenue for the reform of the system. Political parties need to know
that they must move towards the reform of their electoral strategies otherwise
Supreme Court will intervene time and again. In the similar way executive too
need to understand that its commitment is towards the betterment of the Indian
society in comprehensive manner, all other considerations subordinate to it. It
must also learn to be proactive.
There is no doubt
that Right to Reject may be an eye opener to all major stakeholders to the
Indian democracy. All must keep in mind the words of Chief Justice Sathasivam
that democracy is all about choices and voters will be empowered by this right
of negative voting. Negative voting will send a clear signal to political
parties and candidates as to what the voters think about them.
Dr. Vivek Kumar
Srivastava
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