Making every vote count: Time for a change in manner we elect our MPs, MLAs? | The Indian Express

Making every vote count: Time for a change in manner we elect our MPs, MLAs? | The Indian Express

Written by R Parasuram |Updated: May 3, 2019 9:56:35 am

The writer is a former chief secretary, Madhya Pradesh and former state election commissioner of Madhya Pradesh

Making every vote count: Time for a change in manner we elect our MPs, MLAs?

All arrangements for democratic representation come with some inadequacies. The debate should be on seeking a balance between the need for legislator-constituency connect and proportional representation

What goes in favour of a constituency wise winner is it allows voters to choose their representative out of those on offer on the ballot. (Illustration by Suvajit Dey)

In ‘Half MPs, half votes’ (IE, April 20) Nalini Singh makes a compelling case for switching over from the first-past-the-post system (FPPS) to an alternative, which instead rewards a political party with seats in proportion to the number of total votes polled by it. A large number of people share the view that what was at the time of Independence copied from a largely two-party model for elections to the House of Commons has proved increasingly inadequate for capturing the true character of the electorate’s verdict in the multi-party context of Indian democracy.