Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Electoral system

The article “Does India need a different electoral system?” (June 13) has rightly advocated the need to switch over to the single transferable vote system from the simple majority system which often fails to truly reflect voter preferences. Political parties in India suffer from a deficit of internal democracy. An unintended benefit of the STV method could be that it might democratise the functioning of parties through the process of wider debate and consultations that could precede the choice of multiple candidates.

What makes a mockery of our much-trumpeted democratic process is the low voter turnout, especially in the urban areas. Therefore, any change in the voting methodology without addressing the core issue of cynicism and indifference of the urban educated middle class voters to the electoral process will hardly make the system more representative and participatory.

V.N. Mukundarajan,

Thiruvananthapuram

It is time we started thinking of an alternative electoral system because the simple majority system has failed to benefit the maximum number of people while enabling politicians to reduce our democracy to a mockery. Cultivating vote-banks and sticking to power are the main objectives of politicians today. India will certainly be better off if it adopts the single transferable vote system.

S. Ramani,

Chennai

A party that secures less than 20-30 per cent of the vote coming to power in the name of simple majority has become the order of the day in India. The people have almost lost faith in our electoral system for it has miserably failed to ameliorate the lot of the poor. The diminishing voter turnout in successive elections bears testimony to this. Our electoral system needs to be complemented by a system that is more scientific and beneficial. The electorate should also be vested with the power to recall its elected representatives.

Sravana Ramachandran,

Coimbatore

We certainly need to replace the present system with a more representative one. Among the several ills of our electoral system, the most damaging one is the first-past-the-post basis of election. This more often than not leads to a situation in which a party receiving less than 50 per cent of the popular vote gets a majority and forms an unrepresentative government. It lacks popular mandate but imposes its agenda on a population that is unwilling to accept or is opposed to it. An alternative is to opt for the proportional representation system.

G. Narayanasamy,

New Delhi

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