India should come out of colonial mindset and think of alternate system of voting, says ex-CEC

Chennai:

India should come out of colonial mindset and think of alternate system of voting, according to former chief election commissioner T S Krishnamurthy.

Speaking during a discussion on role of media during elections organised by Press Institute of India, Krishnamurthy said that now candidates get elected by garnering only 15 to 20 per cent of votes while stressing the need to change the electoral system.

He said there should be a mechanism that the candidate should get 33 per cent of votes or one third of votes to get elected.

He also backed the concept of right to recall elected candidates but it could not come into being as his successors did not favour it.

If the law to recall elected candidates is issued it should not be implemented till the candidate completes two-and-a-half year of tenure in the parliament, he said.

“It should be implemented after 30 months and the right to recall should be taken up only for serious misdemeanours,” he said.

Krishnamurthy said he is also for the system of right to recall candidates on an experimental basis. “It could be tried on local government level or during the state assembly election before graduating into Lok Sabha elections,” he said.

But G V Ramakrishna, former chairman of SEBI and former member of planning commission said it won’t be feasible at the parliament level as one would have to take the signatures of around three to four lakh people.

Interestingly, this could happen only if all the information technology is put into use across the country and every voter is identified, Ramakrishna said.

Earlier, Krishnamurthy said that there is a need to monitor television channels run by political parties. “Most of the parties do subtle campaigning through serials appearing in their channels,” he said.

Krishnamurthy also said that there is 48 hour restriction in India for political parties but there is no restriction on media.

He also said that there should be no opinion poll conducted from the date of announcement of elections to the declaration of results.

Krishnamurthy also said that the delimitation process is not being implemented properly. He said delimitation of constituencies should be taken up once in 10 years.