electoral politics in india

By Ria , Rumana ,

Ruthba , Saba , Brihoti

9j

WHY ELECTIONS IN A DEMOCRACY????

Can all the people take all decisions together in the

country?????

Is it necessary that only aged and experienced people can

prove to be good leaders???

How do you decide who is more knowledgeable???

Even if people get a solution to these problems, how do we

find out whether the people like their representatives??????

What is an election???

A mechanism by which people can choose their representatives at regular intervals and change them if they wish to do so.

The voters can:Choose who will make laws for them Choose who will form the government and take major decisions.Choose the party whose policies will guide the government and law making.

Everyone should be able to choose.One person ,One vote , One value.Parties and candidates should be free to

contest elections.The choice should be offered at regular

intervals.Candidate preferred by people should get

elected.There should be free and fair elections where

people can choose as they wish.

What makes an election democratic?

Inclusion of false names and exclusion

of genuine names in the voters list…

Misuse of government facilities and

officials by the ruling party.

Excessive use of money by rich

candidates and big parties.

Intimidation of voters and rigging on

the polling day.

•In our country , elections are held by an independent and very [powerful ELECTION COMMISSION.

•It enjoys same kind of independence that the judiciary enjoys.

•The chief election commissioner is elected by the president of India.

•The chief election commissioner is not answerable to the president or government once appointed.

FUNCTIONS OF THE EC EC takes decisions on every aspect of

conduct and control of elections. It punishes any candidate or party who

goes against the code of conduct. During the election period , the EC can

order the government to follow some guidelines , to prevent use and misuse of government power to enhance its chances to win elections or to transfer some government officials.

When on election duty , government officers work under the control of the EC and not the government.

WHAT IS OUR

SYSTEM OF

ELECTIONS ?

The Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections are held every 5 years.

The Lok Sabha election is called the General Elections.

There are certain elections that are conducted in a particular constituency owing to death or resignation of a member. These are called by- elections.

ELECTORAL CONSTITUENCIES:-The country is divided into electoral

constituencies for both the Lok Sabha and the Legislative Assembly elections. One representative is elected from each constituency by the voters.

The country is divided into 543 constituencies for the Lok Sabha elections the selected representatives is called the Member of Parliament or MP.

Similarly, each state is divided into a number of Assembly constituencies and representative selected from each constituency is called the Member of Legislative Assembly or MLA.

For the Lok Sabha elections, the country is divided into 543 constituencies. The representative elected from each constituency is called a Member of Parliament or MP.

RESERVED CONSTITUENCIES:(ELECTION PROCEDURES)

In open electoral competitions, certain weaker sections of the society may not stand good chance of winning because of the influence of powerful sections.

Hence, the makers of our constitution prepared a system of reserved constituencies foe these weaker sections.

Certain constituencies are reserved for the people belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SC) and the scheduled Tribes (ST)

In the Lok Sabha, seats reserved for the SCs and the STs are 79 and 41 respectively. These are in proportion to their population in the total population of the country.

Seats are reserved for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) as well.

They may have not the required resources education and contacts to contests and win the elections.

VOTERS LIST :-

The list of people who are eligible of voting is prepared by the Election Commission of India.

This ensures that everyone in the country gets an equal opportunity of choosing their political representatives.

Regardless of a person’s caste, creed, colour and gender, every person of and above 18 years of age is eligible to vote.

This is an important step, it is linked to the first condition of a democratic election: everyone should get an equal opportunity to choose their representatives.

Different citizens differ from one another in many ways: some are rich, some are poor, some are highly educated and some are not so educated and some not educated at all, but still they have the right to vote.

“All are equal and should be treated equal.”

Polling and counting of votes

• The final stage of an election is the day when the voters cast their vote .this is called election day.

Continue…..

• Every person whose name is in the voters list go to the nearby “polling booth", situated usually in a local school or a government office.

• Once the voter goes inside the booth the election officials identify her ,put a mark on her finger and allow her to cast vote.

• Earlier the voters used to indicate who they wanted to vote for by putting a stamp on the ballot paper. A ballot paper is sheet of paper on which the names of the contesting candidates along with party name and symbols are listed .

• Now a days electronic voting machines(EVM) are used to record votes.

• The machine show the names of the candidates and party symbol.

• All the voters has to do is to press the button against the name of the candidate she wants to give her vote.

• Once the polling is done ,all the EVMs are sealed and taken to a secure place.

• A few days later , on a fixed date , all the EVMs are opened and the votes are counted.

• The agents of each candidate are present there to ensure that counting is done properly.

• The candidate who secures the highest number of votes from a constituency is declared elected.

Television channels , radio, and newspaper report this event. Within a few hours of counting, all the results are

declared and it becomes clear as to who will form the next government.

• This happens only when there are no restriction on anyone to contest an election.• Anyone who can be voter can also be a

candidate in the election.• A candidate should be at least 25 years and a

voter should be at least 18 years.There are some restriction on criminals etc.

• Politics parties nominate their candidates ,who gets the party symbol and

support.

NOMINATION OF CANDIDATES

• Party’s nomination is often called party’ticket’.

• According to the Supreme Court, every candidates has to make a legal

declaration:• Serious criminal cases pending against

the candidate• Details of the assets and liabilities of the

candidate and his or her family;and• Education qualifications of the candidate

• It is necessary to have a free and open discussion about who is a better

representative, and who will make a better government.

• In our country such campaigns take place for a two week period between the announcement of the final list of candidates and the date of polling.

ELECTION CAMPAIGN

• During this period,the candidates contact their voters,political leaders address election meetings and political parties and mobilise

supporters.• Successful slogan given by political parties

are:• Garibi hatao.(remove poverty)

• Save democracy.• Land to tiller.

• Protect the self respect of the telugus.

• According to our election law,no party or candidate can;

• Appeal to them in the name of caste or religion

• Use government resources for election campaign;and

• Spend more than RS 25 lakh in a constituency for a lok sabha election or RS 10 lakh in a

constituency in an assembly election.

• All the political parties in our country have agreed to model code of conduct for a election campaign.• According to this, no party or candidate can:

• Use any place of worship for election propaganda;

• Use government vehicle,aircraft and officials for elections;and

• Once elections are announced stones of any project take any big policy decisions or make any

promises of providing public facilities.

POPULAR PARTICIPATIONIt is another way of checking the quality of the election process by seeing whether the people participate it with lot of enthusiasm. It is not free or fair. People will not continue to participate in it.

1. People’s participation in election is usually measured by voter turnout figures. The per cent of eligible who actually cast heir votes are known as TURNOUT. Over the last fifty

years the turnout in India and Europe are declined. The turnout in India has remained stable or gone up.

2. the people who are poor, illiterate, underprivileged vote in large proportion as compared to the rich sections. It is a

contrast to Western democracies.

3. common people in India attach a lot of important to elections

4.the interest of voters in election related activities has been increasing over the year

VOTER TURNOUT IN INDIA AND UK

The outcome of India's elections.1. the ruling parties routinely lose elections in India both at the national and the state level

2. in the US, an incumbent or ‘setting’ elected representative rarely loses an election.

3.candidate who are known to have spend a lot of money on buying votes and those with known

criminal connections often lose elections.4. Barring very few disputed elections the electoral outcomes are usually accepted as

peoples verdict by the defeated party.

THANK YOU!!