CERI Demands Proportional Representation Electoral System

gujarat assembly elections

We representative of political parties, academics, Social activist and social movements, media representatives and concern citizens of the state met here at IIA Bhavan in Lucknowon 12th September, 2018, for the Uttar Pradesh State Conference organized by Campaign for electoral reforms in India (CERI)  Uttar Pradesh state chapter,and have unanimously adopted  the following resolutions.

1-We are deeply concerned for the democracy of the country and agreed that the electoral system is most important to ensure democratic form of government but the present First Past ThePost (FPTP) electoral system being practiced in our country has not represented equal value for each vote. FPTP allows political parties to come to power both in the state and centre with less percentage of votes. The percentage of votes that a party gets is not the same as the percentage of seats it gets in this electoral system. This is not democracy as this system does not give a true representation of the voters. It excludes the losing voters from participating in Governance.

2-As alternative, we demand reform in electoral system by adopting Proportional Representation electoral system for India to ensure democracy through representation in seats/Governance based on percentage of votes. We propose mixed member PR system with 70% of candidate from PR and 30% from FPTP electoral system.

3-The conference also demands that all the registered political parties must follow and adhere to inner party democracy and the election commission comes out with appropriate rules and regulations mandatory for maintaining internal party democracy.

4-This conference demands that, along with existing reservation for SCs and STs Candidates, there must be reservation for women in proportion to their population in the list of candidates under PR system.

  1. The conference demand to do away with the Electronic Voting Machine and revert back to manual voting process to ensure more transparency in the voting process. The credibility of the EVM’s is at the low. Most of the vibrant democracies world over have already done away with Electronic Voting Machines.

 

  1. The conference also is concerned about the deletion of name of people particularly belonging to the marginalized and the minorities from the voter lists. There should only be one voter list for all the elections whether national, state or local bodies and care must be taken before releasing it. All efforts should be made to make it inclusive.
  2. We are concerned with the massive use of money in the electoral system. We urge political parties to demand for state funding of the elections which will only be possible if it is based on ideologies that party pursue and not through based on individual branding.

8-The conference deeply acknowledged with tribute the contribution of MC Raj, founder of CERI in taking forward the cause of PR in India through his research,writings, training and campaign activities all over the country.

In order to take forward the demand of PR ahead in the state of Uttar-Pradesh, the conference decided to form a state committee with representation of all concern  specially political parties supporting it and wish to undertake activities that beneficial in achieving the above resolutions.

For Campaign for Electoral Reforms in India,

Vidya Bhushan Rawat

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