Direct election could clean Indian democracy, says JP

Hyderabad: President of Lok Satta Party and general secretary of Foundation for Democratic Reforms (FDR) Jayaprakash Narayan on Tuesday said that direct elections, decentralisation of power and proportional representation could address the issues in the Indian democracy.

In an exclusive interview to The Hans India, he said that the FDR would strive to achieve these objectives. He said that the Foundation is launching series of conventions on the political reforms in the country.

He stated that the first convention at Hyderabad on January 9 would be held on the topic 'Money Power in Politics'. He said that next year they have been planning convention on 'Rule of Law.'

Jayaprakash Narayan mentioned that the convention to be held on January 9 would be inaugurated by Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu and it would be addressed by many eminent speakers from all over the country.

He appealed to the people not to stop at just discussions on political reforms but to act for achieving them. He said that there are three essential drivers of expenditure in politics. They are legitimate campaign expenditure, costs of party maintenance and illegitimate vote buying.

JP said that legitimate political activity costs money like running campaigns, advertising and public mobilisation are expensive.

Currently, election expenditure ceiling of a candidate is Rs 28 lakh in major States for an Assembly constituency and Rs 70 lakh for a Lok Sabha seat.

However, according to reliable estimates, in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, nearly Rs 100 crores has been spent per constituency on an average.

He said that real expenditure in politics is not on legitimate election campaigns but the spending on workers.

In a typical Assembly constituency, on an average of 200 to 1,000 party workers are available to people round the year.

About Rs four crores would be spent on them every year.