In view of the forthcoming Assembly elections in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur, it is time for the poll panel to act decisively
Whenever any state election is announced, political parties make tall promises to the electorate. In a democracy it is all right to make promises as the voters will be able to select and elect suitable parties and persons to represent them based on their plan of action. But of late we notice that the political parties are including assurances in their election manifestos that are not economically viable and feasible.
During the Tamil Nadu elections, DMK and AIADMK made many unviable promises like waiver of farm loans and even jewel loans. They had promised waiver of NEET exam for medical seats when even in the Supreme Court NEET was recognized as the proper way to conduct admission for medical colleges.
Now a senior Bharatiya Janata Party functionary in Andhra Pradesh has made a promise that if the BJP comes to power, they will offer liquor for just Rs.50. He said that there are one crore people in Andhra who consume liquor and if all of them vote for BJP in 2024, they will get liquor initially for Rs.75; if the government gets good revenue, they will get liquor for Rs.50 even. He further assured that the citizens will get quality liquor.
The above promise shows to what level the party is willing to stoop to gain votes. The promise is unethical and immoral. It will also be against the spirit of our constitution and the election commission and judiciary must suo motu act in time.
It is ironical that the present offer of quality liquor at affordable price is coming from the Bharatiya Janata Party, whereas Prime Minister Narendra Modi, proud of his identity as a Hindu nationalist and rich heritage of Bharat, made a reference to Uthiramerur’s model of democracy on the day he performed the Bhumi Pujan of the new Parliament complex in New Delhi.
Democracy is not something given to us by westerners. In fact, we should be grateful to the foundations of democracy laid down by ancient India with a practiced and elaborate system of self-governance 1200 years ago in Uthiramerur, Tamil Nadu.
Western intelligentsia propagates Magna Carta, “The Charter Of Freedoms” of 1215 the world over as the oldest and greatest written constitutional document of all times perhaps due to ignorance about a better treatise on formulation of freedom of the individual and self-governance a good 450 odd years before Magna Carta and nearly1000 years before the Constitution of United States Of America came into being in 1788.
Several temples of Tamil Nadu have inscriptions on temple walls on the existence of village assemblies and the Uthiramerur temple contains earliest inscriptions with complete information about how the elected village assembly functioned. In these inscriptions there are details about the constitution of wards, the qualification of candidates to be nominated for the elections, the disqualification norms, the mode of election, the constitution of committees with elected members, the functions of these committees, etc.
When T N Seshan, former Chief Election Commissioner, wanted to introduce election reforms, he was inspired by the inscriptions of Uthiramerur temple.
Our Constitution contains Directive Principles of State Policy and under Article 47, it contains the following: “Duty of the State to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living and to improve public health. The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties and, in particular, the State shall endeavour to bring about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health.”
Hence making a promise to offer liquor at a reduced price, if elected to power, should be considered as against the directive principles of state policy. It will be worthwhile to refer to the judgement delivered by the Supreme Court on July 5, 2013 in the case S.Subramaniam Balaji vs Government of Tamil Nadu and others.
The case relates to distribution of free gifts (freebies) to the people. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam while releasing the election manifesto for the Assembly Elections 2006, announced a Scheme of free distribution of colourtelevision sets to each and every household which did not possess the same, if the said party/its alliance were elected to power. The Party justified the decision of distribution of free CTVs for the purpose of providing recreation and general knowledge to the household women, more particularly, those living in the rural areas. In pursuance of the same, follow up actions by way of enlisting the households which did not have a CTV set and door-to-door identification and distribution of application forms were initiated. This Scheme was challenged by way of filing writ petition before the High Court on the ground that the expenditure to be incurred by the State Government for its implementation out of the State Exchequer is unauthorized, impermissible and ultra vires the Constitutional mandates. This writ petition was dismissed by the Madurai branch of the Madras High court.
When the case went to the Supreme Court, it decided that the promises in the election manifesto cannot be declared as a corrupt practice. Further the Supreme Court said that the schemes challenged in this writ petition fall within the realm of fulfilling the Directive Principles of State policy thereby falling within the scope of public purpose. From here we can conclude that any promise by the political parties cannot be in contravention of directive principles. When the directive principles states that prohibition should be enforced, any promise contrary to that will be unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court further expressed as follows: “Although, the law is obvious that the promises in the election manifesto cannot be construed as ‘corrupt practice’ under Section 123 of RP Act, the reality cannot be ruled out that distribution of freebies of any kind, undoubtedly, influences all people. It shakes the root of free and fair elections to a large degree.”
Further the Supreme Court has directed the Election Commission to frame guidelines for inclusion of election manifesto in the Model Code of Conduct for the Guidance of Political Parties & Candidates. The Election Commission should be empowered to act not only on the basis of election manifestos but also utterances of functionaries of the political parties.
On another directive of Supreme Court, the Election Commission had called for a meeting of political parties in August 2013 itself to decide about the modalities of election manifestos. But we observe from the recently held assembly elections in various states, the political parties make tall promises without any accountability. Many promises which have financial implications for the state are made without explaining how the funds necessary for them will be managed.
People are hooked not only to the manifestos but also to various promises made during election meetings organized at different places and people may be carried by such assurances. Hence there should be a watch by the election commission on the conduct of meetings of political parties and punitive action should be initiated for violation.
In view of the forthcoming elections in Punjab, UP, Goa and Manipur, it is time for the election commission to act decisively.
(The writer is a retired banker. The views expressed are personal.)