Monthly Archives: April 2014

I for Informed: Weekly Updates

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#Elections2014 are underway! The first phase of polling kicked off with six constituencies from the Northeastern states (5 in Assam; 1 in Tripura) casting their votes.

As part of our initiative ‘I for Informed’ to increase voter awareness, here’s what we have been up to during the last week:

  • We hosted our first Twitter chat on Wednesday 2nd April, 2014. Our panelists included prominent individuals in the field of politics, journalism, and public service. Our founder, Ankur Garg, moderated the chat.

I for India, Twitter Chat Creative

The hour-long chat touched upon several important questions that voters should consider in order to make an informed decision this election. Check out the Storify here, for a recap of the conversation.

  • We held a Parliament Trivia contest, and asked Twitter users questions related to the 15th Lok Sabha. For example: Who is the wealthiest Member of Parliament (MP)? Who is the youngest MP? Visit our Facebook Page to see all the questions and answers.

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The winners of our contest were Abhinav Panigrahi and B Kapilan. A big congratulations to both of you from the I for India team!

  • We partnered with Seven Sisters Project, Northeast India’s first mobile phone-based citizen news service, to jointly share the Report Cards of the Northeastern constituencies which go to vote in the first-two phases of polling.

  •  Twitter users can now use #iForIndia to tell us which constituency they are voting from, and we will share their report card with them. Several people have reached out to us for their Neta Report Card.

With over a month of election excitement, we will continue to facilitate open discussions, engage with voters, and encourage them to keep track of the politicians they elected, and more importantly, will elect for the next five years!

Upcoming activities include a Twitter Chat on “making our mainstream public discourse more inclusive of different regional voices,” particularly of the Northeast, and Jammu & Kashmir. Follow #iForInvolved for more updates.

We are also sharing the Report Cards of constituencies around their polling dates on our social media channels, so stay tuned for your constituency report card. (Or tweet to us if you can’t wait!)

Follow us at @iforindiaorg and like our Facebook Page to stay updated with our #Elections2014 activities.

Saanya Gulati is Outreach and Research Manager at I for India

Elections 2014: Do I Vote for a Candidate or a Party?

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With elections around the corner, everyone wants to engage in the ‘Modi-Gandhi-Kejwiral.’ This is telling of India’s personality-driven politics. While the unprecedented enthusiasm in politics is encouraging, my concern is this: how much time do we spend discussing which candidate we should vote for from our own constituency? In fact, do we spend any time discussing this?

The media sensation created around India’s prime-ministerial candidates oversimplifies the complex and multi-layered reality of our institutions. For the most part, our media discourse on elections revolves around party ideologies and their prime-ministerial candidates. Seldom do we spend time assessing the qualifications and accomplishments of our individual candidates – those whom we will directly elect to represent us in the Parliament

In order to understand why party affiliations outweigh an individual candidate’s credentials in voting decisions, it is worth revisiting three aspects of India’s political system.

The first of these is the centralized structure of India’s political system. While India has three layers of governance (central, state, and local) representing devolution of power in theory, we lean toward a more unitary system in practice. The Centre continues to hold power over substantial matters, like defence, foreign affairs, and atomic energy. Even in matters where the central and state governments have concurrent responsibilities, state laws cannot override the central laws, and the financial powers usually rest with the centre. The party that comes to power at the centre will thus have significant decision-making powers, which potentially influences voters to vote on party lines rather than for a particular candidate.

The second explanation is India’s anti-defection law. This legislation binds MPs to their party’s command, by enabling political parties to issue a whip. A whip can be issued for almost any vote in Parliament. Thus an MP’s stance on a particular motion or legislation becomes irrelevant. Related to this is the fact that we lack a voting record that indicates which of individual MPs on legislations, and motions that are passed in the Parliament. A voice vote is sufficient in most instances. The lack of physical records makes it virtually impossible for a voter to know which Bills and motions an MP has voted for or against in the past. Were this information available, it could act as a good benchmark against which to judge an elected representative’s priorities, and viewpoints on issues that are taken up in the legislature.

The third and final explanation is that party politicspenetrates to every layer of governance. Consider the MPLADS (Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme), which allocates 5 crore per annum to MPs to undertake development work in their constituencies. This is slightly divergent from the core role of an MP, who is supposed to act more as a legislator and less of an administrator. In other words, MPs do not have direct control over civic issues, such as water supply, sanitation, or electricity, (visit our blog on the role of an MP/MLA/Corporator) which they are typically required to address through MPLADS. The idea behind this scheme is to ensure that development is not ignored in regions where the ruling party is not in power. This is indicative of how pervasive party politics are. MPs who are not from the ruling party (centre or the state), can often face unwarranted delays and administrative roadblocks in getting their projects implemented.

An unfortunate reality is that 30% of our sitting Lok Sabha MPs have criminal cases registered against them. Additionally, 3 out of 10 MPs entered politics through family connections. Parties have conventionally paid little attention to candidates’ professional backgrounds, qualifications, and contribution to the local community. But as voters, even we tend to focus on the larger narrative: who will be the next PM of India? Which party will come to power? Amidst these discussions, we lose sight of the micro-narrative: Who is the candidate you are voting for?

The question of ‘whether one should vote on party lines, or for a particular candidate,’ has no simple answer. Perhaps, if in these elections we start assessing the candidates from our own constituencies and factoring their individual qualifications into our voting decisions, we can in turn force parties to choose candidates more carefully in the future elections to come.

Saanya Gulati is Research and Outreach Manager at I for India

(Data from this article is sourced from PRS Legislative Research, Association of Democratic Reforms, and India Site.)