Most of the funds that come for elections in India are from the "looting" of government treasury, former chief election commissioner J M Lyngdoh claimed today.
"Most of the funds that come for elections are from loot of treasury in India and this is what we have to stop," Lyngdoh said addressing the IIM-A's annual business summit Confluence-2011 here.
"It is stolen from the government treasury the moment a government is installed (comes to power). The first thing that they do is they attack those budgetary provisions like irrigation department," he said. "The EC or any other institution of the country shall be incapable from preventing that money to be used in elections," Lyngdoh said.
The former CEC also stated that EC has not tasted much success to stem the flow of black money into elections. "Election Commission has not been successful in stemming the flow of money, and why we can't expect them to do that is for a simple reason that there is so enormous amount of black money generated for elections and is always used," he said.
Referring to measures that can be taken to stop flow of black money into elections, Lyngdoh suggested that first-past-the-post (FTTP) system should be implemented. In first-past-the-post system, voting refers to an election won by the candidate(s) with the most votes. The winning candidate does not necessarily receive an absolute majority of all votes casted.
{{/usCountry}}Referring to measures that can be taken to stop flow of black money into elections, Lyngdoh suggested that first-past-the-post (FTTP) system should be implemented. In first-past-the-post system, voting refers to an election won by the candidate(s) with the most votes. The winning candidate does not necessarily receive an absolute majority of all votes casted.
{{/usCountry}}"Another choice could be proportional representation (PR), where political parties shall be fighting amongst themselves," he said, referring to scope for reforms in electoral process. PR is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. It means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. "No EC can bring about this change, it has to be done through by Parliament through amendment of the Constitution," he said, adding that if we can do that we shall be more democratic than countries like the UK and the US.