THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 22 APRIL 2019 (Being fair and transparent (The Hindu))

Being fair and transparent (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level: Election Commission of India
Mains level: Various bodies

Context

•  Two phases of the 2019 general election have been completed. Polling has finished in 186 out of 543 parliamentary constituencies. Polling in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, has been cancelled for corrupt practices.
•  Five phases still remain till counting is comprehensively undertaken for all the seven phases of the election, on May 23.
•  The reason to complete all the phases is that the result of any one phase should not influence the choices that electors may make.
•  Having served the Election Commission of India (EC) for five-and-a-half years during which I conducted the 2009 general election, Dark points
•  These vast sums intended to bribe or influence voters prove several things. The first is that these sums almost certainly represent only a fraction of current illegal spending, a tip of the iceberg as it were.
•  They have been detected by the EC’s machinery acting on the basis of tip-offs, or else by the vigilance of electoral officials in the States.
•  Unfortunately, the bulk of illegal tranches of money, liquor or freebies would have reached their destination.
•  Political players have refined their methods in being many steps ahead of the EC’s observers and their vigilance teams by moving their funds to their destinations even before the elections are announced.
  Does this not make a mockery of the statutory limit of ₹70 lakh that each Lok Sabha candidate has as his poll expenditure limit?
•  As a country we need to ask ourselves some hard questions.
•  When every rule in the book is being broken, when there is no transparency on how political parties collect or spend their funds, when limits of candidate spending are exceeded in every single case, then the time has come to debate whether we need to re-examine our rule book.
•  In order to supervise the matches in play, the EC has had to deploy over 2,000 Central observers for the entire duration, drawing them out from their ministries and departments at the cost of their normal work at the Centre and in the States.
•  Thousands of vigilance squads are set up and must act on the information they receive, which is why the current level of seizures have already made this India’s most expensive general election yet.
•  An intelligent guess may lead us to a final tally of spending in excess of ₹50,000 crore, the bulk of which is made up of illicit funding and spending.

Giving it teeth

•  The matter of the Model Code of Conduct and its administration by the EC has been the most frequently reported single issue in this election.
•  For those of a certain generation, the 10th Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), T.N. Seshan he once famously declared that “he ate politicians for breakfast” was the man who made the country sit up and take note when he decided to level the playing field as never before.
•  There is little doubt that he reminded the EC that it had powers inherently enshrined in Article 324 of the Constitution powers so great that there is arguably no other electoral management body with similar powers.

Way forward

•  If there is anything for me to applaud thus far in this election, it is the decision made by two political parties which have selected over 33% women candidates Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (41% for 42 Lok Sabha seats) and Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (33% for 21 Lok Sabha seats).
•  After years of patriarchy or at best lip service, these parties have taken a vital step towards empowering women politically.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) In which of the following species did the scientists found microplastics recently in Kochi coast?
A. Echiura and Chaetognatha
B. Porifera and Bryozoa
C. Sternaspls scutata and Magelona cinta
D. Eschrichtius robustus and Calypte anna

Answer: B
Mains Questions:
Q.1) The Election Commission needs to take stock of several issues, including campaign funding. Comment