Election panel’s guidelines were long overdue
The fresh list of comprehensive guidelines that the Election Commission of India has issued to ensure that political parties do not make outlandish promises in their election manifestoes, is welcome. It is also in keeping with President Pranab Mukherjee's Republic Day eve speech where he observed that parties must make promises that they can realistically honour, or else the people will grow cynical and lose faith in the system. We have seen in the past, and more so in recent times, that political parties trip over one another to promise the electorate not just the moon but even measures that militate against the Constitution. It is not as if the parties do not know that what they are offering is not possible to deliver. But they do so with the only aim to win over the voters during election time, and if their promises remain unfulfilled because of a constitutional hurdle or because the assurances are simply un-implementable, they turn around and tell the people that they had tried their best and that their intentions are not suspect. For instance, parties such as the Congress and a few regional outfits had in recent months gone to the extent of telling the electorate that, if they are voted to power, they would extend the benefit of reservation on the basis of religious affiliations. Religion-based quota is against the Constitution, whether it is given as a separate concession or is carved out from the reservation that presently exists for the Other Backward Classes. The Congress's Andhra Pradesh Government even proceeded several months ago to announce the implementation of a similar programme, and the courts had to step in to ensure that it does not become the norm. A more recent example where unworkable populist measures were announced in manifestoes is that of the concession that the Aam Aadmi Party had decided to give to electricity consumers who had refused to pay their bills as part of an agitation that Mr Arvind Kejriwal and his supporters had launched before the AAP he leads came to power in Delhi. Here too the court has had to step in.
Through its guidelines, the Election Commission of India has not in any way constrained parties from promising benefits to the people, but it has only pointed to the undesirable impact that certain assurances can have. Besides, many of these promises are meant to destroy the level playing field. As of now, electoral promises or actions that threaten to prejudice the minds of voters are not allowed once the code of conduct sets in. But manifestoes have remained largely unaffected, which is why they are filled with sops and unrealistic assurances. The Supreme Court had seven months ago observed that the distribution of freebies tends to “influence” people. While it is not realistic to expect that parties will entirely give up on the sops, they must at least not target beneficiaries exclusively, and out of the constitutional framework, on parochial grounds.