In the winter session of the
Maharashtra Legislative Assembly held in Nagpur in December 2019, the new
Mahavikas Aghadi government amended the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act[1].
According to this amendment, the system of two to four corporators contesting
from a single ward of the Municipal Corporation has been changed to one
corporator per ward. But for the past few days, there have been talks in the
political circles about going back to the system of two members per ward again.
This article discusses the said matter and why the general public needs to pay
attention to it.
The Indian electoral system is
called ‘First Past the Post’. It means, out of all the contestants, the
candidate who gets the highest number of votes, wins the election. A geographical
area is agreed upon to decide who may vote for that candidate. The geographical
area which is chosen for the MPs sitting in the Parliament and the MLAs sitting
in the Legislative Assembly is called ‘constituency’. Locally, it is named ‘the
ward’. The idea behind it is that one person from each geographical area should
be elected through the voting process. But this system is currently facing a
lot of political arbitrary interference. Let’s look at Pune Municipal
Corporation as an example.
Till 2002, one person per ward used
to be elected from Pune Municipal Corporation. But things suddenly changed
since that election. In 2002, the Pune Municipal Corporation adapted the system
of electing more than one person from a single ward. Three corporators seats were
introduced instead of a single one. Voters needed to cast three different votes
for those three seats. In 2007, the system changed again to one corporator per
ward. Again the voters voted for a single candidate contesting from their area.
Five years later, in 2012 during the next elections, the system was changed
again. This time two candidates per ward were introduced and voters cast two
votes to elect their representatives. Followed more changes during the
elections in 2017! This time it was four corporators per ward. More changes are
planned for 2022. No two elections between 2002 and 2017 have been similar.
Every single time, the state government has changed the laws about elections.
Though this is only Pune’s example, every other municipal corporation except
for Mumbai has been through similar changes.
Naturally, one may ask, what’s
wrong with these changes? What’s wrong with having more than one corporator per
ward? Now let’s see what really is wrong with it. The law specifies how many
corporators should be there in a municipal corporation and also if their number
should increase in proportion to the population of the region. If the ward has
more than one corporator, the size of the ward itself also increases. Municipal
corporations are called ‘Local Self-government
Institutions’. In this definition, the word ‘local’ is important. It is
a governing body that takes care of the local issues at the root level.
Clearly, it is always better to have the people’s elected representative
(corporator) from the same area. But when the ward size increases immensely,
the representative comes from a distant area instead of the nearby one. My
corporator is no longer someone who lives in the same locality as I do, who
knows the local issues, and not someone whom I know either.
Another important point is, if
there is more than one corporator in the same ward, the responsibility cannot
be determined. As they say, ‘everybody’s responsibility is nobody’s
responsibility’. It is exactly the case in the wards with multiple corporators.
Since it’s unclear who is the true representative of the people, the credit for
the completed work is claimed by everyone. On the other hand, they all blame
each other for uncompleted tasks. But the citizens cannot hold any of the
corporators accountable for it. Answerability and responsible government- the
very backbone of democracy- are harmed. Over the years, it has been
consistently observed that even though all the corporators in a ward are from
the same political party; the differences, competition, and discord among
themselves also affect the development work. Let’s not even think about the
situation if they are the representatives of different or opposition parties.
There’s another point related to
the uncertainty of responsibility and area of work that needs to be mentioned.
Which is of ‘Area Sabha’. The 73rd Amendment in the decade of the 90s gave the people
in rural areas the right to hold a ‘Gram Sabha’(village council) to take direct
decisions about local matters. Urban citizens still have no such right. But the
law that goes closest to it is the one to hold Area Sabha. The law stipulates
that these meetings need to encourage the direct involvement of the citizens in
the local decision-making process. It is mentioned that the chairperson of this
meeting should be the corporator of that particular ward. But since there are
four corporators in a single ward in Pune, officials and political leaders
privately confess facing the intricacies about who should be the chairperson.
This bill was passed by the Legislative Assembly in 2009 but it still hasn’t been
implemented till date.
The fourth and most important point is - it is difficult for a common man, an
independent worker, to contest the election from an enormous ward. In a democracy, it is insisted that at the local level, candidates working at the root level
should be elected and political parties should come into the picture later. It
is secondary whether that candidate is the representative of a political party
or is an independent one. This is the reason why there is no party
representation in Gram Panchayat elections. Should this be the case at the city
level too, is another issue altogether. One needs to be regardful that the
electoral mechanism shouldn’t be unjust towards the independent candidates.
When the ward size and the number of voters are increased because of the
multiple members' ward system, it becomes almost impossible for a common independent
candidate to reach out and campaign in such a heavily populated area. On the other
hand, it is comparatively a lot easier to contest the elections for a candidate
who has money, party workers, and other means of campaigning. Besides, because
of the constant changes made during every election, a common man who wants to
stay put at one place and work sincerely, is easily side-lined. Elections are
made difficult for such a candidate. This is a threat to democracy.
One
of the excuses given in favour of multiple members ward system is – the
reservation for women and backward classes. Had this been the real reason, this
same rule should have been applied to all the municipal corporations together.
In reality, apparently, there is only one corporator per ward in Mumbai
Municipal Corporation; but in Pune, this ratio is four to one, whereas at other
places it's two to one and even three to one. So obviously this reason is given just
for the sake of it. Another excuse is, if there is only one corporator, he
starts considering himself the king of the ward. But this can also be the case
with MPs and MLAs. So should four or five constituencies be combined in order
to hold elections? On the contrary, instead of having a cure worse than the
ailment, if measures like ‘Area Sabha’ are implemented effectively, it will
help change the feudal mentality of our representatives.
The truth is, there is no rational, deliberate thought, research put behind these changes. The method that is convenient for the political parties in power in the state at that particular time is implemented. It is a shameless political calculation that the electoral system that will allow as many corporators to be elected as possible, will be brought into action. So it varies according to the local political situation in each city. It is crystal clear that all our party leaders have a selfish interest in only taking the decisions that help them elect as many candidates as possible in the Municipal Corporation. It is the need of the democracy that the state government stops this arbitrary and selfish practice and keeps the people-oriented, accountable system of one member per ward permanently in all the Municipal Corporations. As citizens, we need to be aware and insistent on this.
-Translated by Srujana Pradnya.
(Original Marathi article is published in ‘Sakaal’ on November 20th, 2020.)
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