Loksatta Party's Jayaprakash Narayan appealed for changing the present first-past-the-post system to proportional representation, to protect democracy.
Loksatta Party national President Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan today appealed to all parties in the country to work for replacement of the present first-past-the-post electoral system by proportional representation, to protect democracy from collapsing.
Under the present dispensation, JP said, the competent cannot get elected, and those elected through resorting to money and liquor cannot deliver.
Addressing a media conference, JP pointed out that the country was witnessing a mad scramble for power. In the general elections that had just concluded in Telangana and residual Andhra Pradesh, the contestants put together had spent not less than Rs. 6,000 crores, and perhaps Rs. 8,000 crores, as they viewed the election as a life-and-death struggle, he stated.
JP advocated direct election of the State Chief Minister as a corollary reform.
One might spend Rs. 10 crores or Rs. 50 crores to become an MLA or MP, but it was unlikely that one would spend Rs. 5,000 crores to get elected as Chief Minister, he said.
A third associated reform was empowering local governments with devolution of powers and resources, if the current MLA raj was to be ended.
JP pointed out that united Andhra Pradesh has the dubious distinction of initiating the culture of buying votes with money and liquor. That culture has now spread to most of the other States.
With large sections of people remaining illiterate and steeped in poverty, politicians came to power by dangling freebies, too, he said. "Yet, we shamelessly feign a wonderful democracy," he lamented.
It was distressing, JP said, that political parties were bent on coming to power by offering money and sops, and not through focusing on what elected governments needed to do.
In any civilized society, a government needed to provide quality healthcare, education, skills and livelihood opportunities, and basic infrastructure, and ensure the rule of law.
Unmindful of the grave fiscal deficit the newly emerging residuary Andhra Pradesh is about to face, the main political parties had promised loan waivers ignoring the future of the youth.
Similarly, political parties in Telangana too had promised loan waivers and other freebies. The fiscal surplus in Telangana would vanish into thin air if the irresponsible promises were implemented.
JP warned that India would face a bleak future if it did not focus on providing at least a crore of jobs every year, considering that 1.5 crore people were joining the workforce every year.
"We still have one last window of opportunity, since China is exiting manufacture of low-value goods with its population aging and wages rising. If we fail to grab that opportunity, countries in South-East Asia, Africa and Latin America will," he said.
JP pointed out that in the past few years there had been a severe contraction in GDP growth because of the criminal negligence of the manufacturing sector by the UPA Government.
The country had witnessed a drop in the number of people employed in the agriculture and unorganized sectors.
Even in the few spheres which had witnessed growth, there was no increase in the number of jobs, he stated.
If the growth of the jobless was not reversed, the demographic dividend would turn into a demographic curse, and trigger political unrest and chaos, he predicted.
Replying to a question, JP said that irrespective of the outcome in the elections, he would devote the rest of his life to ushering in fundamental reforms in polity.
United Andhra Pradesh Loksatta Party President Katari Srinivasa Rao, and party leaders N. Saroja Devi, Bandaru Ramamohan Rao and Jagadeeswaran from Tamil Nadu, took part in the media conference. (INN)