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Indian Freedom Struggle (1707–1947 A.D.)

Notes that this stance ignored well-established practice and was self-serving. The Chief Election
Commissioner’s advice to the government that it should act keeping in mind that the country was
already in election mode even though the statutory period of restraint had not yet begun also fell
on deaf years. (Though the Lok Sabha was dissolved in April 1999, fresh elections were delayed
till September and October due to the monsoon and revision of electoral rolls.) The government at
one stroke transferred eight secretary-level (the highest rank in the bureaucracy) officials, including
the Home Secretary, who is responsible for law and order, on 3 May 1999, after the Lok Sabha had
been dissolved. This, despite the fact that one of the most important conventions evolved for
ensuring fair elections is that officials are not transferred once elections are announced. Sadly, the
letter of the constitution was used to defy constitutional practice.

President Narayanan clearly had to exercise a difficult choice here. There were claims
and counter-claims about the extent of support enjoyed by the Kalyan Singh ministry,
there were defections and return-defections and allegations of monetary and other
inducements. Nonetheless, the President decided that since the U.P. ministry had
demonstrated its majority support, however unfairly acquired, on the floor of the
house, he had no right to dismiss it. His critics argue that demonstration of majority
support is not the only criterion on which to decide whether the constitutional
machinery in a state has broken down and support achieved through intimidation
or inducement can be questioned.

The Parliament
The Indian parliament has two houses—the upper house being called the Rajya Sabha or the
Council of States and the lower house the Lok Sabha or the House of the People. The Rajya Sabha
has 250 members, of whom 238 are elected by elected members of the state legislative assemblies
or Vidhan Sabhas via a system of proportional representation by means of single transferable
vote, while another 12 are nominated by the President, on the advice of the government, to
represent different fields such as education, social work, media, sports, etc. Every two years, one-
third of the members of the Rajya Sabha retire; but individual members’ terms are for six years, so
that the Rajya Sabha is a permanent body. The Vice-President of India is the chairperson and a
deputy chairperson is elected by Rajya Sabha members from amongst themselves.
The Lok Sabha is directly elected by the people for five years. It may be dissolved before its term
is over. In case an Emergency is in force, the Lok Sabha can extend its term for one year at a time
but not beyond six months after the Emergency has ended. In practice, only once has the Lok
Sabha’s term been extended for a year in 1976 when prime minister Indira Gandhi had declared
the Emergency.
All Indian citizens, eighteen or above, are eligible to vote. The winning candidate is the one that
is first past the post, that is, the one who gets the maximum number of votes. There is no rule that
the winner must get at least 50 per cent of the votes, as is the practice in many other countries,
though many thoughtful observers have been urging that this system is adopted to ensure the
representative nature of the candidate elected and encourage candidates to look beyond vote-
banks to wider sections of voters. There is no proportional representation.
Constituencies are territorial and single-member, and divided among states roughly in proportion
to the population. A certain number are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes in
proportion to their population in that particular state. This means that if, say, in Andhra Pradesh,
40 per cent of the population is Scheduled Castes and 10 per cent Scheduled Tribes, then in 40 per
cent of Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh only Scheduled Caste candidates can contest and in
another 10 per cent only Scheduled Tribe candidates can contest. All the voters residing in that
constituency would elect these candidates—there are no separate electorates as there were before
independence.

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