By Mumtaz Alam, India Tomorrow,
New Delhi, 26 May 2014: Never before the Lok Sabha Election 2014 were the election laws of the country proved to be so weak and ineffective. Politicians and candidates delivered provocative and hate speeches to polarize votes. The Election Commission could not stop them from doing so though later it took some action against them. TV channels were virtually pressed into carrying election campaign of a particular party as the party had bought their airtime more than any party in the history of Independent India. At least 700 paid news cases were detected in this election. This all makes major amendments in the present election laws necessary in order to keep intact the faith of common people in election process and democratic system.
Hate Speeches
The nation witnessed a number of politicians and candidates giving venomous and communal speeches at election meetings and rallies during this Lok Sabha election. It is said the hate speeches have played a major role in influencing the minds and polarizing the votes on communal lines. Though the Election Commission sent one behind bars, banned two from holding rallies and election meetings, many continued making provocative comments as if they had no fear of laws and so they were doing it deliberately.
It seems putting a candidate behind bar or banning him from holding public meetings during the election generally backfires in the shape of sympathy votes going in his favour on polling day. The menace of hate speeches could be successfully checked only if the offender or at least the repeated offender is disqualified even before the polls and his party should not be given opportunity to field another candidate if the last date of nomination has passed.
TV is new Kingmaker?
Perhaps never before this General Election has TV played such an influential role. While some say there was a ‘wave’ which TV was displaying many others are of the view that like Cinema it was TV this time which influenced the minds – TV sent ‘wave’ from studio to towns and villages. The winning party BJP has also thanked media for creating ‘awareness’ among people. BJP was far far ahead of any political party in airing its election commercials on TV channels – this made the playing field uneven. It seemed to be the game of money. If you have money you can buy all airtime of all TV channels. This is almost what happened this time.
This makes it necessary for the Election Commission to come up with new TV regulating laws particularly for the election period. No party should be allowed to buy airtime more than a certain limit. Otherwise democracy and public participation will be meaningless. What will happen to honest but poor candidates or the parties who believe in value based politics but don’t have much money to spend on campaigns?
Besides, harsher laws are needed to curb paid news (Interview, Rally, Meeting). During this election at least 700 cases of paid news have been brought to the notice of Election Commission.
Archaic Election Laws
The election code which stops election campaign 36 hours before polling has become irrelevant and useless thanks to TV. This law was brought into practice when there was no TV and elections were held on one day across the country. The peaceful 36 hours would give people time to think and make up mind about a candidate of their choice. Now as the election is held in several phases spanning over two months, this law has become useless.
During this election the nation witnessed that while people were voting in some constituencies BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi was holding a massive rally in Varanasi and this all was live telecast on all TV channels. Moreover, long interviews of politicians were also telecast during those ‘peaceful’ 36 hours – even on the day of polling.
As a solution, one can suggest that first the duration of election process should be reduced. Lok Sabha elections should be held in not more than 3-4 phases. This Lok Sabha election was held in 9 phases spanning over two months – first notification was issued on 14 March and the last polling took place on 12 May. Second, there should be one date for nomination for the whole country – this will give equal time of election campaign in all constituencies. Third, when campaign stops for a phase there should be a complete nationwide ban on airing any election ad or live telecast of any political rally or election meeting and publishing election ad in papers till the voting ends for that phase.
