MADURAI
The Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce and Industry senior president S Rethinavelu has appealed to the Centre to replace the present election system with proportional representation election form.
In a press release issued here on Saturday, he said that every vote polled in an election should have a bearing on the election victory. For instance, if 30% of voters cast their votes for a particular political party, that party should get 30% of the total seats in Assembly or Parliament for which elections are held. The idea is that the majority alone should not be the deciding factor.
In the recently held Assembly elections, in Madhya Pradesh, BJP which got 41% of the total votes polled won in 109 constituencies, while Congress, which secured 0.1% lesser votes than BJP won 114 seats. Despite getting 47,827 more votes than Congress, the BJP had to concede power to the Congress in Madhya Pradesh.
In Rajasthan, BJP with a vote share of 38.8% got 73 seats while the Congress, which secured 0.5% more votes, was declared elected in 26 more constituencies with a total of 99 constituencies. This state of affairs does not reflect the true wishes of the electorate.
Though the Chamber had been insisting on a changeover in the election system after the declaration of results, it had not fetched fruits, Mr. Rethinavelu said.
What is required in our country is an election system not based on individual candidate but on contesting political parties with proportional representation in Parliament and Assemblies based on the total number of votes secured by each party, said Chamber president N Jagatheesan.
For instance, under the proportional representation election system, parties will not be permitted to form alliances before election. In the EVMs, only the symbols of the contesting political parties would be there and not the names. Hence, the caste-based politics would be minimised.
The contesting parties will have to submit a list of names of their candidates to the Election Commission according to the total number of constituencies for which the election is being held. Hence, political parties will select and list out only honest persons with a passion for public service as candidates.
Finally, after counting of votes, according to the number of votes secured by each party, the number of seats won by each party in Parliament/Assemblies will be declared, he added.
In the event of no party getting absolute majority, then the leaders of the parties would be allowed to conclude alliances and form the government. The undesirable ‘horse trading’ could be eliminated in such a procedure.
Similarly, if for any reason, a seat becomes vacant after elections, the leader of that particular party will have to pick out a suitable alternative person for that seat from the list already submitted by the party. Hence, no necessity will arise for conducting by-elections.
Proportional representation election system was in vogue with little changes in 94 countries across the world, including Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Israel, South Africa and Sri Lanka, Mr. Rethinavelu said.