Indians want the Right to Recall, None to Vote option

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RATAN SHARGA

16 April, 2011

If some pro-people amendments are made in the People Representation Act, it would empower the people of India to choose clean candidates and then they can think of getting good governance in return.

THERE HAS been a debate going on among the intellectuals of this country to have certain amendments in the Peoples' Representation Act of 1951 as people want some more options to pick their representatives.

They also want the “Right to Recall” the elected representative if he/she fails to perform as per voters expectations. There are also demands of barring all candidates with criminal background and above all to promote the “None to Vote” option in the ballot if one finds no candidate suitable for his/her vote.

Besides, there is also an urgent need to put electoral reforms on the fast track so that good and educated candidates can be sent to the Parliament for running the government. There should be a clause in the Act that a candidate would only be declared a winner from the said constituency if he/she is able to secure more than 50 per cent of the total votes polled in that constituency. This will check political manipulation and fielding of dummy candidates by several political parties.

In this context, we need to start a mass movement to create awareness among the people. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has said that he was in favour of the 'Right to Recall' that would give power to the people to file a petition against elected representatives for their recall in the event they failed to perform to the people's expectations.

"This issue was first raised by Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narain in the '70s and I am glad that Anna Hazare has brought this subject once again to the fore. We need to have a national debate on this matter to keep the system clean," the Chief Minister said.

Nitish Kumar said that the people of India had enough of corrupt politicians and were not going to tolerate it anymore.

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COMMENTS (1)

Subroto Sarkar

I filly endorse this school of thought. Time has come to eleminate this goondas from entering parliament. The first and formost clause will be to introduce age limit so that youth only will be the guardian and not old and dying politicians, Secondly all person who wants to contest election must be a graduate. Any criminal act even violating road rules will debar them from contesting in the election for life. And finally if the elected rep has not the support of 50% voters he will be liable to recall at any time if 10% of the voters file a pettition with the election commission.