The document discusses the critical issues and challenges regarding electoral reforms in India, highlighting the persistent criminalization in politics and its impact on free and fair elections. It critiques the current electoral system plagued by corruption, misuse of money, and the lack of accountability among politicians, suggesting that reforms are necessary for restoring public faith in democracy. The essay emphasizes the role of the Election Commission and the need for systemic changes to ensure transparent elections and greater citizen participation.

1. ELECTORAL REFORMS IN INDIA: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES BEFORE THE
ELECTION COMMISSION
SYNOPSIS
1) Introduction
2) Electoral Reforms in India
3) Elections in India
4) Free and fair elections
5) Criminalization in Electoral System:
6) Issues and challenges before the Election Commission
7) Current Situation

2. ABSTRACT
In this essay, we have a given a brief view about elections and politics inheriting criminalization.
The failure of the Legislature to deliberately think over key issues, particularly criminalization in
politics forms the fragment of introduction. A concise panorama about the misuse of authority,
money power and muscle power escort the introducing lines. Besides, the essay entails the
electoral reforms in India. The transformations in the same has been discussed such as the
introduction of Electronic Voting Machine, lowering of voting age, deputation of Election
Commission is included. The power of Election Commission accompanies the above lines in the
essay. Further, the method of free and fair elections forms a part of it. The elections held at
regular intervals, that is, after every five years forms a part of our democratic structure.
Auxiliary, the next part deals with criminalization in politics leading to an unfair election. Few
instances aiding such criminalization in politics add to it. Use of money power to win elections
has also been discussed in this essay. The subsequent part enumerates the issues and challenges
before the Election Commission. It also includes criminal charges against the politicians already
holding their posts as the representatives of the government. At the end, a short assessment of the
current situation is discussed. It entails the failure of our political structure together with a
suggestive approach and the need for bringing more electoral reforms in the present system.

3. Electoral Reforms in India: Issues and Challenges before the
Election Commission
INTRODUCTION
“An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul
concerned in it.”
- George Bernard Shaw
Electoral reform means introducing fair electoral systems for conducting fair elections. It also
includes recuperation of the existing systems to enhance and increase the efficiency of the same.
One of the most important features of our democratic structure is elections which are held at
regular intervals. Free and fair elections are indispensable for a healthy democracy. India has an
indirect form of democracy which implies that the government draws its authority from the “will
of the people”. It is the citizens who have the sovereign power to elect the government and this
government is responsible to the people who have elected them. But there are some
shortcomings connected with this form of democracy which we have been carrying since long.
The citizens who elect the representatives have no right to “recall or reject the representative” on
the ground that they are unsatisfactory for their post unlike Switzerland, pursuing a direct form
of democracy. They have the right to recall a representative elected by them if they are not
competent to hold their office. But no such system exists in our country.
Six decades ago, India opted for a Parliamentary democracy at the time of Independence. The
term “Parliamentary democracy” implies that the sovereign power to elect the representatives
vests with the citizens. But now the time has come to chew over the points that were we correct
in opting for this form of democracy. We should not only blame the politicians alone but also
“we the people of this country” because we too are some where responsible for the same. The
first and the foremost task that is required to be done at this hour is the removal of three dreadful
things, that is, money power, muscle power and the mafia power. Besides this, four C’s have also
to be wiped off. This includes corruption, criminalization, casteism and communalism. After
being elected as a representative of the government, politicians turn their deaf ear towards the
citizens with the help of whom they were able to climb up to their chambers. But these are the

4. topics still waiting in the queue to be taken into consideration. No one feels like giving their ear
to it.
We have a Parliament that does not discuss those issues which requires serious attention and
debate. Just because we have elections every year, it does not mean that we have an effective
democratic structure. We can compare this with other countries which attained freedom from
colonial rule at the time when India achieved its Independence. The condition differs. It’s true
that we have inaugurated a good democratic structure as compared to other developing nations
but the recent observations shows that we are still lagging behind because of the intervention of
criminalization in politics. Indian political system is deteriorating day-by-day due to various
reasons like misuse of offices, money power, corrupt officials, etc. Politics is like a game. If you
play well, you will keep on ascending and one day you will be certified as the Master of Politics.
People today, consider this arena to be a dirty one and they usually don’t prefer intruding in the
same. They regard it as a non-lucrative field. There was a time when socially, a corrupt person
was not regarded as a desirable man. But today, we have reached such a stage that corruption is
not only taken for granted but people with money are most respected by the society. The fault
lies in the political and electoral system that has derailed the social, economic and administrative
fabric of the country.
ELECTORAL REFORMS IN INDIA
“Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble
those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have
been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same
results”.
-Machiavelli
Elections form the mainstay of our Indian Democracy. Our democratic setup bestows on us the
right to elect the representatives of the state. Besides, the elected people have the right to choose
the Head of the State. The elections in India have a long history. India has both General and State
elections as promoted by our federal structure. The Election Commission of India is the apex
body that conducts elections in India. Both the General and State Elections are held as per the
rules prescribed by the Election Commission. This Commission is composed of high-ranking

5. government officials and is constituted according to the provisions of the Indian Constitution. A
great degree of autonomous power is bestowed on the Election Commission to exercise control
over the election process. Even the judiciary has no right to intervene while the electoral process
is on.
Some of the Electoral reforms that have occupied the Election Process includes EVMs that is,
Electronic Voting Machine which results in more transparency and creditability of elections,
Universal Adult Franchise initiated by 61st Amendment, 1988 which has reduced the age of
voters from 21 years to 18 years and Anti- Defection Law which curtails the criminals from
taking tickets of various political parties and also bestows on them the right to extract the
contesting candidates’ profile. Besides, Section 58A has been inserted in the Representative of
the People’s Act by Act 1 of 1989 providing for adjournment of pole or revoking of elections
because of booth capturing.
ELECTIONS IN INDIA
“Elections are held to delude the populace into believing that they are participating in
Government”.
-Gerald F. Lieberman
Elections in India are held for the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha, and the State Legislative
Assemblies that is Vidhan Sabha, the Legislative Council known as Vidhan Parishad and for the
President and the Vice- President too. Besides, elections are also held for the local bodies like the
Municipalities, the Municipal corporations and the Panchayati Raj Institutions.
A large expanse of money is spent when these elections are held. The Chief Election
Commissioner, Dr. S.Y Qureshi recently spoke with NDTV news on the challenges from a
corrupt electoral system. He says that elections have become a biggest source of corruption
because a huge expanse of money is spent in conducting such elections and this is beyond the
prescribed limit. The candidates who win have the propensity to take their money back and that
too with interest. This is how the corruption commences. He further adds that it has become a
competitive phenomenon in system. If one party spends more money, then the other party
standing for election spends like a spendthrift. Whether it is money or criminals, both are

6. competitive. In his words, “If a criminal is put up by one party then the other party feels very
disadvantaged. They feel they have no chance until a bigger dada is put up against them”.
FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS
India is the largest democracy in the world. Since 1947, free and fair elections are held at regular
intervals as per the guidelines of the Constitution and the Election Commission. The Constitution
of India has vested in the Election Commission of India the superintendence, direction and
control of the entire process for conduct of elections to Parliament and Legislature of every State
and to the offices of President and Vice-President of India. Elections are conducted as per the
constitutional provisions and the laws made by Parliament. The major laws are Representation of
the People Act, 1950, which mainly deals with the preparation and revision of electoral rolls with
all aspects of conduct of elections and post election disputes.
CRIMINALIZATION IN ELECTORAL SYSTEM
“If we a going to spend a lot of money to deal with the problem of 200 million guns in the
country owned by 650 million gun owners, we ought to have a system which will work and catch
criminals.”
- John Dingell
Criminalization in politics has contributed towards a feeble electoral system. The representatives
who stand for elections are stuffed with various criminal charges against them. It is a well known
perspective from a common man’s eyes that these politicians take the comfort of criminal
elements to ascend the ladder. This is really a matter of agonizing the citizens who go and vote
for them. If they give vote considering that it is their fundamental right, then are these politicians
cum criminals who are leading us creating a just atmosphere? The answer will always be a big
“no”. The Law Commission of India Reports contains the bio data of the politicians, describing
their social background, charges against them, if any, etc. It is our fundamental right to know the
antecedents of every person to whom we give vote. But very few make use of such benefit. This
is because of the lack of awareness among people. Section 8 of People Representation Act, 1951
provides for disqualification of any candidate on being convicted by a Court of Law. It also
includes that such candidate shall be barred from contesting any election further for six

7. additional years since the date of conviction. This shows an austere step to control
criminalization in politics. But the question is; is there a hardhearted implementation on the
same? Is it so that we have corrupt free officials? Also, do they feel the endurance of such tests
meant for scrutinizing their background? To all this, the answer remains “no”. The reason for
this is the use of money power in politics.
“The only power the government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there
aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it
becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
-Ayn Rand
The Election Commission of India issued an order on 27 March, 2003 in pursuance of the
judgment of the Supreme Court dated 13 March, 2003 in the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties &
another vs. Union of India case, that candidates for electoral office must submit an affidavit
disclosing his assets and liabilities. It has been noted by the Election Commission of India in its
report “Proposed Electoral Reforms”, 2004, that “there have been many cases where the
candidates are alleged to have given grossly undervalued information, mainly about their assets”.
This is taking the country towards a languishing state. It is not a sign of development. India is
said to be a developing country. With this attitude, that we have been noticing so far in our
political system will increase crimes and nothing more. This is paving way for all the illicit and
forbidden activities.
Criminalization in politics is not very new, there were and there are many of the politicians
charged with criminal and corruption records, some of them are : Prakash Singh Badal and
Sukhbir Singh Badal chief minister and deputy Chief Minister of Punjab respectively, were being
held for cheating, possessing asset disproportionate to known sources of income. Ashok Chavan,
Chief Minister of Maharashtra, in Adarsh Housing Society scam. Suresh Kalmadi, Member of
Parliament for criminal conspiracy and cheating related to 2012 commonwealth games. M.K
Kanimozhi, Member of Parliament for 2G spectrum. Y.S Jaganmohan Reddy, Member of
Parliament for accumulating huge wealth disproportionate to his known source of income.
B.S.Yeddyurappa, former chief minister of Karnataka, held for Illegal Mining Scam. Moreover,
the 2005 elections in Bihar included 358 candidates charged with criminal acts like murder,

8. attempt to murder, bribery and robbery. It implies that our democracy ends the day we cast our
votes.
ISSUES AND CHALLENGES BEFORE THE ELECTION COMMISSION
There has been universal appreciation of the Indian electoral system. People have hailed the
manner in which elections have been conducted in India. But there are its weaknesses. It has
been seen that in spite of the efforts of Election Commission to ensure free and fair election,
there are certain shortcomings of our Electoral system and also there are some issues before
election commission of India.
The role of unaccounted money in elections has become a serious problem. The political parties
collect funds from companies and business houses, and then use this money to influence the
voter to vote in their favour. The business contributions are mostly in cash and are not
unaccounted. Many other corrupt practices are also adopted during election such as bribing,
rigging or voters intimidation, impersonation and providing transport and conveyance of voters
to and fro the polling stations. The reports of liquor being distributed in poor areas are frequent
during election. These are some illegal practices perform by the candidates during elections on
the basis their money power.
The dominant role of money in elections, which is taking newer and outrageous form, is deeply
worrying. Instances of politicians paying for news coverage and bribing voters were widespread
in 2009-2010 elections and even vote for note scam is one of the biggest examples of money
power. On seeing these instances, politics seems to be the market of barter system that is note ke
badle vote.
As a result violence during elections has also increased. Though these activities does not take
place very openly but are still in progress, there are many small town where these activities
takes place before and even after the elections and there is nobody to oppose it. Generally the
candidates are given tickets by the political parties on the consideration whether the candidate
can muster the support of numerically larger castes and communities and possesses enough
resources. Even the electorates vote on the caste and communal lines. Communal loyalties of the
voters are used at the time of propaganda campaign.

9. This system of caste and religion voting showed up during various election campaigns when the
candidates used to give their speeches in favour of one religion. One of the recent examples is
Varun Gandhi’s hatred speech toward muslin during the election campaign. All the political
parties do not have equal opportunity in respect of access to resources. The party in power is
always in advantageous position then the opposition parties. There is widespread allegation that
the party in power accomplishes misuse of government machinery. All these features lead to
violence, booth capturing, rigging bogus voting, forcible removal of ballot papers, ballot boxes
burning of vehicles, etc. which result into loss of public faith in elections. The weaker and
vulnerable sections among electors are forcibly prohibited from voting or are made to vote
against their free will. Many of the ineligible voters find the place in electoral rolls like dead and
shifted voters and even sometimes many of the non citizens also find the place in electoral rolls.
Even we found repetitions and duplications on electoral rolls.
There are sometimes mistake in the spelling the names of electors, the names of their
Father/Mother/Husband (as the case may be), date of birth, address etc. Mistakes in the spelling
of names, recording of date of birth/age and the correct recording of addresses have been some
of the major irritants as far as the electors are concerned. Because of the hitherto used old
techniques of writing the name of the elector in one language and then transliterating it into
another (English, Hindi or some regional language), problems have repeatedly arisen in correctly
spelling the names of persons or their addresses. This has dented the creditability of electoral
rolls.
Another challenge associated with the management of electoral rolls in India is matching the
correct photograph with the elector’s details of each and every elector whose name finds a place
in the roll. Here again, because of the hitherto used old technique of keeping the electors’ details
and their photographs separately, mismatch in photographs used to be reported quite often. There
is no provision for making online application by the candidate which also reduces the
transparency. Citizens have no way to track the application or there is no effective monitoring of
tracking application, even most of the people or citizens of India are unaware about their right to
track application, they are not aware about whether they can ask for tracking the application of
the candidate participating in election.

10. CURRENT SITUATION
The way our Legislature, the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies
function, it does not make us feel proud. One of the major problems with the Legislature is the
number of unsatisfactory candidates who find their way to Legislatures. For example, it was
reported by the media that more than half of the MLAs to the present state assembly election in
Uttar Pradesh had noteworthy criminal records. It is quite common to put almost the entire blame
for the current state of affairs on the so-called political class in the country. But those who blame
them entirely overlook the fact that this political class emerges from the society only. They are
not developed in vacuum or in isolation. It’s the citizens who do not make use of the benefit
furnished to them. Therefore, one way to change the behavior of the political class would be to
change the system in which they have to operate. This is where electoral reforms become
important.
The Government believes that our political system is broken. We urgently need fundamental
political reform, including a referendum on electoral reform, much greater co-operation across
party lines, and changes to our political system to make it far more transparent and accountable.