Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

Title: Discussion regarding Electoral Reforms raised by Shri Devendra Prasad Yadav on 3rd May, 2005.

15.28 hrs. DUSCUSSION UNDER RULE 193 Electoral Reforms – contd.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The House will now take up further discussion regarding Electoral Reforms raised by Shri Devendra Prasad Yadav. Shri Sudhakar Reddy may speak now.

SHRI SURAVARAM SUDHAKAR REDDY (NALGONDA): Sir, comprehensive electoral reforms is the need of the hour to create confidence among the people to improve voting in India. Some ills of the system are the bye-products of the structural defects in the electoral system. Lop-sided and corrupt system pave way for petty leaders and mafia gangsters to gatecrash into the Legislatures.

We do need to go into important political structural changes. There is a defect in the present system. The defect is, 51 per cent is cent per cent and 49 per cent is zero per cent. The will of the 49 per cent of the people is not considered in the elections. There will be no representation for them. In some countries, there is proportional representation for elections. I believe, there is partial proportional representation for Parliament in France, Germany and in a few other countries.

In our country, there is a problem. Even a partial proportional representation may bring religious fundamentalists and casteists to take advantage of this situation. That is the reason why we should not go for a total proportional representation. A State can be made a unit by which each political party should announce the list of the candidates and according to the percentage of the votes, 50 per cent of their seats may be reserved in the Lok Sabha according to the percentage of the votes of each political party. The remaining 50 per cent may be elected directly by the people candidate-wise, as it is being done today. This may be an experiment. But, it is worthy experiment, which we should try.