ELECTORAL REFORMS IN INDIA: Current Discourses

Electoral laws in India have many loopholes, especially since they have not been updated much by any government. The book brings to fore many important issues, like the election policy, and also attempts to provide a solution by citing examples from countries like Germany, Japan and China. There is much scope for improvement, but unfortunately governments over the years have not been serious in addressing electoral reforms. There certainly have been improvements with the Election Commission taking some major initiatives in bringing about changes like introduction of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), and providing every voter with the Voter Identity Card, but larger issues merits the serious attention of other institutions. It is time that proactive steps are taken by the government so that the people not only get a chance to vote but also to vote for the right people, who finally represent the country for them.

This book, therefore, attempts to collate, analyze and chart possibilities, which can perform the dual function of being fingerposts for both study and implementation, no doubt deriving from the extant body of available material but rising above it, by carefully tiding over the flaws, which make earlier writing restrictive and generalized. It also winds its way through scrutinizing the validity of various recent discourses on electoral reforms and attempting to establish on the one hand a dialectical re(-)visioning of the institution of the Election Commission and the process through which it validates existence, and on the other, striving to link aspects, which are complementary without being unified—that is, the Election Commission, the office of the Chief Election Commissioner and electoral reforms.