Truly Informed Voting
Just like we now have anti deflection laws, In the same way we need some law in place which should make it mandatory for parties to announce their coalition before the polls . This is a must if the polls have to be truely democratic because a voter must know who is likely to be coming into the centre if he votes for a particular candidate. For example if I vote for an X party as their ideology is acceptable to me but in the end they may make a coalition with a Y party whose ideology is not acceptable to me. But now I have no choice for the next 5 years. This is against the idea of true democracy as I have not chosen the Y party. That is why it is important to know the partnering parties in advance so that we are aware who will be ruling us in the end if we vote for a particular party.
For true democracy the voter should give an informed vote after full and true disclosure. We have a living example in the UPA tie up. People who must have voted for the Congress for its progressive and Global vision, had to put up with the Left ideology though they would never have subscribed to it and hence never voted for them. Only a small part of India voted for the Left but the whole of India had to put up with its views. The government was almost brought down due to the crisis at the time of the nuclear deal. We even would have risked the nuclear deal for the same reason.
Moreover the parties get down to hard bargaining once election is over which actually may be detrimental to the interest of the people. On the contrary if the coalition is decided before hand we are fully informed about who will rule us if we vote for a certain party and if it wins. This is our ‘Right’ and we must stand for it. We must pressurise the election commission and the Government to make such provisions as coalition governments are here to stay.
Dr. Monica Matani
LEAD INDIA'07-'08 - Mumbai runnerup winner
