Rahul Mehta Gandhinagar LsCandidate

To reduce negotiating powers of voters and enable leaders to become more reckless, SoMoKe / ECI support the proposal of conducting all Loksabha, Assembly, Municipal and Panchayat elections together on one day (i,.e all elections within say 30 days ) !!!
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Why are SoMoKe not handing over all profitable railway lines to FDI in one day? Why are SoMoKe not allowing all GM / BT food in one day? Because they and leaders in their parties fear such decisions decrease their vote shares in coming Assembly / Municipal / Panchayat elections and so their MPs / MLAs oppose.
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Let me further explain. LS elections were held in may-2014. And PM and MPs dont need to give a damn about voters and their grassroot activists till may-2019. So PM and MPs can be as reckless as they want till may-2019. But then each 6-8 months, we have some state Assembly elections and also have Municipal / Panchayat elections. So if PM, MPs, MLAs etc worry that if PM tales too many unpopular decisions, like handing away all profitable railway routes to FDI bringers or completely dismantling BSNL in urban areas or allowing enmasse GN / BT crops etc, then voters and activists may react and defeat them in coming Assembly / Municipal / Panchayat elections.
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So SoMoKe and ECI have a "brilliant" proposals. Lets conduct all Loksabha, Assembly, Municipal and panchayat elections at the same time --- say in may-2019 or so. In that case, now no MP, no MLA, no Corporator, no Panshayat member etc need to give damn about what voters and their own party workers think / want till next may-2014 !!! So they can all be as reckless as they want in promoting FDI, dismantling PSUs, handing over PSU banks to videshi. promoting GM crops and so on,.
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ECI has given ingenious reasons. One is cost. Cost of election is Rs 20 per voter, which is 0.02% of GDP (GDP is Rs 100,000 per person). and much of the high costs is because of EVM !!! If EVMs are removed and ballots are used again, then costs will decrease. But say all costs are Rs 50 per voter per election and so that would 0.05% of GDP? Is that high? I dont think it is high. But like some poor street beggar , ECI says that "elections are too expensive". So one solution I SERIOUSLY propose is that every election booth officer in booth should have recipept book, where he can openly take donations from voters in cash or cheque. I am sure 10% voters will contribute Rs 100 or more, on an average and that will pay the cost of elections. That way, we can reduce the burden of poor beggars in ECI, who dont have money to conduct elections.
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Another reason SoMoke and ECI gives is that elections stall development !!! Well, that USA must be most under developed country in world !!! Because a typical district in USA has 1-2 elections / referendum EVERY year !!!
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1) Every 4 years, President elections
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2) Every 3 year , one senator lection'.
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3) Every2 year, Loksabha election'.
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4) Every 4 years, Goverbor elections
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5) Every 2 to 4 years, Assembly elections
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6) Every 4 years, Mayor elections
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7) Every 2 to 4 years, Councuilor election
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8) Every 2 to 4 years, elections of District judges, District Public Prosecutor, Distrtict Police Chief aka Sheriff, District Education Officer (or school board chairman / members) and so on
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9) States like texas have all judges elected --- all magistrates, all judges including state high court chief judges eletected !!!
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10) State/ District level rerferendums - eg jseveral districts / states legalized marijuana using referendum against federal laws
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Some elections are clubbed, eg Presidential elections are often clubbed with Senatorial elections if they happen to fall in same year. But most elections have their own separate cycles and durations.
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IOW, a typical district sees almost 1-2 elections / referendum every year !! Typical months are feb/nov and vary from state to state, district to district.
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So if elections stop development, as SoMoKe and ECI in their infinite wisdoms say, then USA must have been least developed country in the world !!!
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So all that wisdom that "elections slow down development" is a royal piece of nonsense. Elections have become joke and thats because of absence of Right to Recall. That was something said by Mahatma Chandrashekhar Azad in 1925 that "without Right to Recall, democracy and elections will become joke" !!!
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So no, reason is neither cost, not development, The motive why SoMoKe / ECI want all elections to be held on one day is ONLY so that they can become more reckless for next 5 years after elections end,
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But excuse they have given is - cost. So my proposal, let any voter donate money to ECI on election day, and I am sure that will fetch more than costs of elections.
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I will later start "order your MP via SMS / tweeter" campaign on this issue. Please follow my profile for exact sms text and hash codes for this proposal.