Describe the challenges to free and fair elections
Answers
Candidates and parties with a lot of money may not be sure of their victory but they do enjoy a big and unfair advantage over smaller parties and independents.
In some parts of the country, candidates with criminal connection have been able to secure a ‘ticket’ from major parties.
Some families tend to dominate the political parties; tickets are distributed to relatives from these families.
Very often, elections offer little choice to ordinary citizens as both the major parties are similar to each other in their policies and practices.
Smaller parties and independent candidates suffer a huge disadvantage as compared to the bigger parties.
In a democracy, elections are the process by which representatives of people are elected to power. Once elected, these representatives decide the course of development and formulate policies for same. It is therefore imperative that elections are unbiased. But their are various challenges involved :-
Money and muscle power - Fighting elections are costly affair as candidates spend money on promotion by organising big political rallies, advertisements in print and electronic media etc. The limit on this expenditure is around Rs 70 lacs and Rs 28 lacs for lok sabha and state legislative assemblies respectively. It is common knowledge that the expenditure on ground is way more and this results in creating a barrier for those who lack resources. Political parties find it preferable to give tickets to those who can fund themselves and the more deserving is robbed of opportunity.
A study by Centre for media studies estimated that in 2014 Lok Sabha elections around 30000 cr was spent. Use of unaccounted money is prevalent in elections and this opens opportunities for vested interests to support candidates who once elected can return the favour thus criminalisation of politics.
Steps are being taken by Election Commission in this regard like mandatory filing of election expenditure, flying squads etc. In 2016, Tamilnadu assembly elections, ECI deferred polls to two constituencies on evidence that large scale money was being used to influence voters. The menace is big and more is needed so that democracy can function as it is intended.
Biased bureaucracy - Favourable postings, post retirement job security, promotions etc are some of the reasons which has made bureaucrats susceptible to biasness towards political ideology. This nexus hampers the conduct of free and fair elections as their acts favour those political parties who they want to see in power. Model code of conduct reduces this to some degree.
Caste, religion and class disparity - Promoting interests of one's own community is not wrong and may help in balancing the disparities in social structure. But when candidates canvass for votes by channeling hatred towards the other, this makes the election unfair as some social groupings own disproportionate amount of wealth to back their candidates. Supreme Court recently passed a ruling on this accepting it as unfair and let's see how this is implemented in future.
Fake news and paid media - With advent of social media everyone has a social presence and can be the consumer and producer of content at the same time by reading and sharing. Unauthenticated content on these channels may influence public opinion and can pose a challenge to fair elections.
Paying media houses which show political advertisements as genuine news items is also an issue having potential to tip the scale of balance in elections. ECI needs to be more vigilant to prevent this.
Electoral illiteracy - Illiteracy among voters hinders their ability to properly research about the candidates they are voting for. Other side to this is the lack of interest among educated voters who do not take their right seriously. Election commision has taken steps towards correcting electoral rolls and promoting electoral practices.