India's National Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU

Vol. 16 :: No. 04 :: Feb. 13 - 26, 1999

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ELECTORAL REFORMS

For state funding of elections

A multi-party parliamentary committee under the chairmanship of Indrajit Gupta recommends partial state funding of recognised political parties and their candidates in elections.

V. VENKATESAN
in New Delhi

WHEN the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies included comprehensive electoral reforms in their National Agenda for Governance, most people responded with a sense of deja vu. Every political formation that assumed power at the Centre in the recent past had made this promise, but none of them had made any sincere attempt to fulfil it. Of course, there is no certainty that the BJP-led Government will introduce comprehensive reforms in the electoral system. However, in June 1998, it constituted a multi-party parliamentary committee under the chairmanship of Indrajit Gupta of the Communist Party of India(CPI) to look into the question of state funding of elections. The other members of the committee were Somnath Chatterjee of the Communist Party of India(Marxist), Manmohan Singh of the Congress(I), Madhukar Sarpotdar of the Shiv Sena, Vijay Kumar Malhotra of the BJP, Sedapatti R. Muthiah of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Digvijay Singh of the Samata Party.

After holding extensive discussions with political parties across the country, the committee prepared its report and submitted it to the Union Home and Law Ministries recently. It has recommended far-reaching measures to reform a key aspect of the electoral process: funding of political parties and candidates. The committee has made out a strong case for state funding of elections because political parties performed a vital public function to sustain democracy. However, it has recommended that such funding should be confined to parties recognised as national parties or State parties by the Election Commission and to candidates fielded by such parties.

While members of the committee believed that the ideal situation was total state funding for elections, a broad consensus favoured partial funding in view of budgetary constraints and the prevailing economic conditions. The committee has indicated that the ultimate aim should be that all legitimate expenses of political parties are funded by the state. However, for the present it has recommended that the state meet some essential expenses of political parties during election campaigns and provide them administrative support during the period between elections.

According to the committee, the aim should be to discourage political parties from seeking any external funding (except a nominal membership fee) to run their affairs, carry out political programmes and conduct election campaigns. The committee has laid emphasis on the need for greater insulation between political parties and private contributors of funds. As election campaigns required huge amounts of money and the costs of routine political activity between elections are also substantial, political parties have become overly dependent on private contributions, often acquired through questionable means and usually on the basis of a quid pro quo. Business houses and entrepreneurs contribute funds to political parties and seek to influence government decisions through them.

The committee has said that state funding of elections would bring in an element of equality to electoral contests, particularly because it would help remove the disadvantage faced by parties which represent the socially and economically weaker sections and which often have limited access to big donors.

There was criticism that state subsidies paid in the form of cash could be misappropriated. The committee, therefore, has recommended that subsidies be extended to recognised political parties and their candidates in the form of facilities. Thus every recognised national party may be allotted rent-free accommodation for its headquarters in New Delhi and every recognised State party may be provided the same facility in the respective state capitals. It has also recommended that the State provide one rent-free telephone with subscriber trunk dialling facility at the premises. A higher quota of free calls than what is available normally to telephone subscribers has also been recommended.

The committee has endorsed the efforts of the Election Commission (E.C.) to allocate sufficient time free of cost on Doordarshan and All India Radio to recognised political parties for election broadcast, and suggested that the facility be extended to private television channels in order to ensure fair and balanced coverage.

There is general agreement that the state should provide every candidate of the recognised parties a specified quantity of petrol or diesel to run vehicles during an election campaign, a specified quantity of paper to prepare election literature and voter identity slips, postal stamps for a specified sum of money, five copies of the electoral roll in a constituency, and an amplifier system for every Assembly constituency or for every Assembly segment of a Lok Sabha constituency, subject to a maximum of six such sets for a Lok Sabha constituency.

According to the recommendations, during election campaigns the state should provide a deposit-free telephone with a specified quota of free calls for the candidate's main campaign office in every Assembly constituency or segment (subject to a maximum of six telephones in a Lok Sabha constituency), basic facilities for the candidate's camps outside each polling station on election day, and food for the candidate's counting agents inside the counting hall on counting day.

In order to curb the election expenses of parties and candidates, the committee has called for reasonable restrictions on wall writings, the display of cutouts, hoardings, banners and posters, the number of vehicles used for election campaigns, and the time and venue of public meetings.

V. GANESAN
Indrajit Gupta, chairman of the all-party parliamentary committee on state funding of elections.

The committee has recommended the creation of a separate Election Fund with an annual contribution of Rs.600 crores (at the rate of Rs.10 a voter, for the total electorate of about 60 crores) by the Centre and a matching amount contributed by all State governments together.

The committee has suggested that in order to be eligible for state funding, political parties and their candidates should have submitted their income tax returns up to the previous assessment year and that political parties should accept all donations above Rs.10,000 in the form of cheques or drafts and disclose the names of the donors.

The committee has said that the Government and Parliament should decide whether there should be any ban on donations by companies and corporate bodies for political purposes, as there was disagreement among the members. While Indrajit Gupta, Somnath Chatterjee and Sedapatti Muthiah recommended such a ban, others opposed it. The committee could not reach a consensus on whether the election expenses of political parties and other associations and individuals should be included in the accounts of election expenses of candidates.

According to Explanation(1) to Section 77(1) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, any expenditure incurred in connection with the election of a candidate by a political party or by any other association or body of persons or by any individual (other than the candidate or his election agent) shall not be deemed to be expenditure incurred or authorised by the candidate for the purpose of determining the ceiling on expenses to be incurred by the candidate. The Dinesh Goswami Committee on electoral reforms (1990) suggested that the explanation be deleted as it would provide an escape route to a candidate determined to exceed the ceiling imposed on campaign expenditure. There is no provision to keep tabs on the expenditure incurred by the party of the candidate or his or her friends in an election campaign.

The committee has referred to the apparent contradiction between this explanation and Section 171H of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which prohibits any campaign expenditure by political parties or any other body of associations or individuals without an authorisation from the candidate and makes any violation of this a penal offence.

THE Law Commission of India has also submitted a set of proposals on the reform of electoral laws. The Commission has proposed a 'list system', which will allow the E.C. to allocate seats proportionately among the parties on the basis of the percentage of votes secured in every State. In the existing 'first past the post' system, the majority of voters often go unrepresented as candidates who secure between 30 and 35 per cent of the votes get elected. The Commission has suggested addition of 25 per cent of seats to the strength of the Lok Sabha and the Legislative Assemblies to be filled by the list system. All political parties reportedly support this proposal.

The Commission has suggested that the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution be amended to prevent splits and mergers in political parties. It has also said that amending Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act would facilitate the disqualification of candidates and elected legislators under any offence mentioned in Section 8(1).

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee expressed his support for these proposals at a seminar on electoral reforms organised jointly by the Law Commission and the Bar Council of India in New Delhi on January 23. However, given the unstable condition of the BJP-led coalition, whether the Centre can muster the political will and put these proposals into practice is a moot question.