Addressing a seminar “Parliamentary Democracy in Germany and India: A comparative analysis from the viewpoint of political justice, fair representation and good governance,” former Minister and Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik said that the system of election prevalent in India is not at all good when compared to the Proportional Representation system of election of Germany.
The Indian people and their leaders - both in politics and in non-political fields - are rarely committed to ethics and even judges, when they are in legal profession as lawyers, do not care to give the exact income tax on the basis of their actual income. Introduction of Proportional Representation system in India is sure to ensure a greater degree of political justice and fair administration, opined Patnaik.
Introducing the topic, Freethought Party of India (FPI) general secretary B Ramchandra CST Voltaire said the Indian FPTP (First-Past-the-Post) system is the reason for which the BJD is having 80 per cent of the seats of Odisha legislative Assembly as against its 43 per cent vote share in the 2014 general elections. The BJP has got 282 seats of the lok Sabha with 31 per cent of popular vote and the Congress ‘s seat-share is just 44 per cent even though it has polled 19 per cent of the popular vote in the 2014 general elections. “Unless there is fair representation, there is bound to be political injustice and lack of good governance in the country,” Voltaire said.
Writer Dr Rajendra Narayan Das, who has chosen to become a German citizen, graced the seminar as chief guest and eloquently pointed out that the German Secular Federal Parliamentary Democracy is 1,000 times better than the parliamentary democracy in India.
“The Germans are so much ethically committed that no one gets a job or an academic degree by bribing the system and no German political leader tries to put his / her children into the political system by sheer manipulation as is the case in India,” Das said.
Among others, scribes Subhas Chandra Pattanayak, Odisha Rationalist Society secretary Debendra Sutar, Editor “Subarta” Pradyumna Satpathy, Ambedkar intellectual Prafulla Kumar Jena, Harish Chandra Kar, Uma Charan Mishra, Mamata Samanatray, Jagabandhu Sarangi, Swapan Bijayini of AMOFOI and Badri Narayan participated.
It was agreed that India should replace its FPTP system of election by the German brand of election for the good of all Indians. FPI president Dr Bijayananda Kar presided.
CERI chief in Odisha and columnist Manas Jena, Subhas Chandra Pattanayak and Pradyumna Satapathy were felicitated.