Public consultation on electoral reforms is a very good idea. It needs to be fine-tuned for better results

The law minister and the chief election commissioner announced a major initiative on electoral reforms on December 9. They announced that seven regional and one national consultation would be held over the next couple of months with political parties, NGOs and other stakeholders for a comprehensive overhaul of the electoral laws. It was indicated that the proposals would be ready for initiating action within six months of the national consultation in New Delhi on April 2-3, 2011.

Our electoral laws were made almost 60 years ago, during idealistic times in the afterglow of independence. While there has been no shortage of ideas and recommendations (see accompanying box for the list of reports) and there have been piecemeal amendments from time to time, the laws, as a body, are almost completely out of tune with current ground realities. The initiative to collect views from across the country in order to make comprehensive reforms is thus very welcome.

The whole effort can be looked at from two perspectives: content and process. One way of getting at the content is obviously to study all the existing recommendations and the amendments and their rationale, see how they match up with existing realities and how things are likely to evolve in the years to come, and then develop the proposals for change. This can be improved by consultations with a wide cross-section of people. This is precisely what the law ministry and the election commission set out to do with the seven regional and one national consultation, and that is what raised high hopes. There have been five consultations so far, at Bhopal, Kolkata, Mumbai, Lucknow, and Chandigarh, but the process followed during the consultations, sadly, does not inspire much confidence. The first consultation in Bhopal seemed limited to politicians and bureaucrats making speeches. Based on feedback given after Bhopal, the format at Kolkata was revised to include parallel panel discussions. The same format has been followed at Mumbai, Lucknow, and Chandigarh.