Shun bigotry, focus on real issues, civil society tells parties

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Forum for Democracy and Communal Amity state chapter released its manifesto for Karnataka Assembly elections 2023 in Bengaluru on Saturday. They released the document at Karnataka Administrative Services (KAS) Officers’ Association and held talks on topics pertaining to electoral politics on the occasion.

Justice Nagmohan Das, who led a commission that recommended expansion of the SC and ST quota in Karnataka, spoke on the occasion. The manifesto called upon all political parties to swear off communalism, casteism and promote sectarian harmony. Instead, parties should emphasize social justice and economic issues, it added.

The document recommended that parties should have inner-party democracy by holding elections, not give tickets to those accused of violent crime and serious charges, ban from contesting those who are convicted of heinous crimes, shun bribing of parties and be transparent in disclosing their funding, apart from other suggestions. Former Advocate General and Senior Counsel Karnataka High Court Professor Ravivarma Kumar spoke on the topic ‘criminalisation of elections’.

Retired Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer and Coordinator of Citizens’ Commission on Elections MG Devasahayam spoke on ‘EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) and transparency in elections.’ President of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and advocate Arvind Narrain addressed the issue of ‘Karnataka: Money power in elections.’

Social anthropologist professor AR Vasavi spoke on ‘Caste, Capital and Regional Satraps in Karnataka’s politics.’ Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) state president Dr Belgami Mohammed Saad spoke on the topic of ‘polarisation as a tool for votes.’

Electoral process has flaws:

Ex-IAS officer Devasahayam, the author of ‘Electoral Democracy?: An Inquiry into the Fairness and Integrity of Elections in India’ declared that the present day electoral process was not consistent with constitutional standards, even raising concerns about the manner in which the 2019 general election was conducted.

“ADR (Association for Democratic Reforms) found that there had been disparities in 342 seats. In many of these cases, winning margins were affected,” he claimed. He insisted that this wasn’t about the ruling party at the Centre, but rather democratic processes being sound.

The retired bureaucrat pointed out that other countries had transitioned to party list Proportional Representational (PR) and Preferential Voting (PV) while India persisted with a First Past The Post (FPTP) system in which a third of the votes was enough to win you polls.

“It’s not just an election. You are transferring your sovereignty to the government for five years,” Devasahayam said, adding that the introduction of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) in 2013 had been rendered useless because it was the EVM votes that were being counted and not the VVPATs. “After the votes are counted, results are declared, announcements are made and crackers are burnt, you verify the VVPATs, which is wrong,” he said.

Money power reigns supreme:

Anthropologist Profes.sor AR Vasavi said that the relationship between the voter and the MLA had become personalised in Karnataka and elsewhere, making the duty of the lawmaker seem like a personal favour to the masses.

She said that MLAs, particularly strongmen, otherwise known as “yajamanas” had amassed immense capital by way of involvement in “construction industry, real estate, mining and building of educational institutions and hospitals” which gave MLAs “leakages” to benefit from. This undermined public health and education, apart from sidelining women candidates with fewer resources, she added.

Polarisation menace real: Jamaat

Dr Belgami Mohammed Saad said that religious polarization had deflected from important livelihood issues. “In Karnataka, we have seen issues such as hijab, halal (meat), azaan come up.

When the (Union) Home Minister (Amit Shah) comes here and tells voters whether they want to vote for people who celebrate Tipu Sultan or Ram Mandir, when BJP state president Nalin Kumar Kateel says ‘love jihad’ is the main issue, real issues are sidelined,” he said.

MLA defections engineered:

Justice Das Justice Nagmohan Das said that MLAs jumping parties had made a mockery of the anti-defection law. “We have an anti-defection law. Apparently, that is no obstacle because certain ‘operations’ turn minority parties into a majority,” he said.