No public accountability

In his concluding remarks before the Constituent Assembly of India, B R Ambedkar opined that:

“The Constitution can provide only the organs of State such as the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The factors on which the working of those organs of the State depends are the people and the political parties they will set up as their instruments to carry out their wishes and their politics.”

It is clear from this that Ambedkar did not consider it necessary to mention political parties in the Constitution as these are not organs of the State. But so are the numerous associations/ federations which are not the organs of the State but the State regulates their functioning. Why has the State not thought of regulating registered political parties which may not be organs of the State but which actually run the affairs of the State? The only reason is that lawmakers do not want to be answerable to anyone as they consider themselves above law.

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They have cornered many benefits for themselves and get numerous privileges from the State as brought out by the Central Information Commission in its judgement of June 3, 2013, declaring them as public institutions and therefore coming under the purview of the Right to Information Act. They have challenged it in the Supreme Court and the matter rests there.

Once a political party is registered with the Election Commission of India (ECI), it cannot be deregistered even if it commits any number of offences. Look at the contrast - even a petty shopkeeper has to observe numerous conditions under the trade licence rules, failing which he loses his licence. What is more surprising is that some of them even get their parties registered with the CEC with a name that belies their secular claims and they even run the affairs of a secular state.

They collect money from all kinds of people including in cash and they are free to use that money in any manner they wish. Parties donating money to them get considerable tax benefits. And with the introduction of Electoral Bonds in 2018, the identity and the value of the bonds purchased by the donors is also not known. They also get various other benefits from the State.

Political parties are perhaps the only entities in our country who enjoy such privileges and benefits without any public accountability. The state of affairs of our political parties today is pathetic. There are, among MPs, 475 crorepatis and 233 with criminal charges against them, and 159 of them have serious charges like rape, murder, kidnapping and crimes against women etc. The situation at the state legislatures is no better. A large number of political parties are run like private enterprises controlled by an individual and his family members. Most political parties display very low intra-party democracy. Quite often, party tickets are sold or given to Bahubalis. Candidates view contesting elections as an investment leading to greater levels of corruption. The level of corruption seems to have reached an all-time high which is evident from the recent representation by Karnataka Contractors’ Association to Prime Minister Narendra Modi which has been widely covered by the media in recent days.

Political parties publicly show their ugly side during elections when they freely indulge in corrupt practices and criminal intimidation. Use of unparliamentary language, name-calling and violence are common in these campaigns. The present rot among the political parties is largely due to the total lack of any kind of regulation over their functioning. It is time these parties are regulated as most of the democracies in the world have brought their political parties under their constitutions and are being regulated.

I am quite sure that no political party would like to support any kind of regulation over their functioning. Yet, I strongly feel a serious debate is needed on the subject and the lead must come from civil society institutions. Judiciary must also play a crucial role in nudging the government to introduce reforms in this sector. I propose the following reforms to make political parties more accountable and transparent in their functioning and also to comply with democratic and secular norms in their functioning:

Constitutional/Legislative measures

Strengthen the ECI by providing constitutional security of tenure to all its members which is currently available to the Chief Election Commissioner only.

Declare the registered political parties as public institutions as their sole aim is to capture power to run governments.

ECI should not register any political party whose very name betrays its links with any religion or caste or creed.

Empower the ECI to lay down stringent conditions for the functioning of registered political powers and make non-compliance of these conditions punishable, including deregistration by the ECI. These conditions must ensure that the parties have limited tenures for their elected offices at all levels; they function on secular and democratic principles and are accountable and transparent in their affairs, besides others.

A separate constitutionally mandated regulatory authority should be created to ensure that these parties function in accordance with the conditions of their registration.

I can safely bet that there will be no large-scale opposition to these reforms though I concede that such reforms are not likely to see the light of the day in my lifetime. I hope that the demand for such reforms will gradually gain public support and someday, a central government led by a statesman with a clear majority in Parliament will introduce such reforms. It is only then that we can proceed to build a truly secular and democratic India. We need professionally managed and honest political parties to run the affairs of governments and not the corrupt family-owned commercial entities called the political parties.

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)