This refers to the article, Towards a swachh chunav mission by Nitin Desai, dated November 24, 2016. During the debate that took place in the Constituent Assembly, Prof. KT Shah was critical of the “heavy cost of seeking representation”, which inevitably led to the failure of democracy in actual practice. He, therefore, suggested that all election expenses be paid out of the public treasury and that anyone who fails to secure less than 10 percentage of votes should not be entitled to claim such expenses. To ensure that candidates, who for lack of funds, would otherwise not be able to come forward for public service, he suggested that the scale of expenditure should be laid down so that there is “no abuse of this privilege”. The Constituent Assembly, however, did not explicitly lay down any provision for simultaneous elections to panchayats, local bodies, state assemblies and Parliament. However, Syed Muhammad Saadulla did express his views on the objection raised against simultaneous elections — “the bogey of expenditure”.
It is unfortunate that even today elections in India are influenced more by the personality of the candidates contesting the elections than larger electoral issues.
Shreyans Jain Delhi
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