Rahul Mehta Gandhinagar LsCandidate
BJP MP Varun Gandhiji's flawed Right to Recall MP / MLA drafts vs RRP's useful RTR MP / MLA drafts - detailed comparision
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Summary of this post
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This FB status explains in detail --- why RTR MP / RTR MLA drafts we at Right to Recall Party (to be registered) have given are useful , whereas RTR MP / MLA drafts proposed by BJP MP Shri Varun Gandhiji, in Parliament, as private member's bill in feb-2017 , are pointless.
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The links to law-drafts given by us and Shri Varunji are given at the end.
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A very short reason why our proposal is better is at --- .
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This status has full details.
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List of chapters
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(01) Sincere thanks to Shri Varunji
(02) Worrisome silence of Varunji on RTR PM, CM, judges etc
(03) Summary of Shri Varun Gandhiji's recall procedure
(04) Summary of Right to Recall Party's RTR MP draft
(05) Summary of comparison
(06) Why is personal appearance better than signature gathering
(07) Condition for recall poll is better in our proposal
(08) Spurious outcome in recall poll is more likely in Varuji's proposal
(09) Failure to have recall poll even when recall is "needed"
(10) Conclusion
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chap-01 : Our sincere thanks to Shri Varunji
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First of all, we all activists at Right to Recall Party (to be registered) sincerely thank Shri Varunji to bring RTR-MP / RTR-MLA in focus in national media and also before workers of Congress / RSS (*) / AAP and all major political parties.
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(* - we take RSS and BJP as one and the same, just as Gangadhar and Shaktiman were same)
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But unintentionally and mistakenly, the RTR-MP and RTR-MLA procedures that Shri Varunji has proposed are seriously flawed, and less flawed procedures or better procedures are known..
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And so we strongly request Shri Varunji to present useful recall procedures and take back the flawed recall procedures he has, mistakenly and unintentionally, proposed
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We request Varunji to consider the RTR-MP , RTR-MLA drafts we have proposed. And we request Varunji to decide whether he wishes to use our drafts or continue with his draft, and we request him to make his decision public.
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chap-02 : Worrisome silence of Varunji on Right on Recall PM, CM, Ministers, judges, District Education Officer, District Police Chief
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Before comparing our proposed procedures with procedures submitted by Shri Varunji, there is one important issue - recall procedures over Ministers / Officers / judges.
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We at Right to Recall Party (to be registered) have emphasized on RTR on ALL important positions such as Supreme judges, High judges, District judges, PM, CM, MP, MLA, Education Minister, District Education Officer, District Police Chief etc. i.e. over 200 nodal positions at District / State / Central levels. Ministers / Officers / judges.
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RTR over these positions is MORE important than RTR MP and RTR MLA !!!
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USA has been having RTR over District Police Commissioner, District Public Prosecutors, District judges, District Education Officers, Mayor, Governor, State High Court Chief judges etc, This is over and above RTR over City Councilors and MLAs. (USA has no RTR over MPs and President). And these RTR in USA has played most important roles in keeping these authorities less corrupt and less inefficient.
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But Varunji has spoken ONLY about RTR MP and RTR MLA !! And Varunji has kept a silence on whether he wants citizens to also have recall procedures over PM, CM, judges, police chiefs etc or not !!
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I request Varunji to clarify whether he supports or opposes RTR over PM, CM, judges etc. And I request all voters to ask Varunji to make his stand clear on RTR judges , RTR PM, RTR CM, RTR District Police Chief, RTR District Education Officer etc. Silence in politics can do a lot of damage.
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Now I will compare RTR MP / MLA drafts given by us and Shri Varunji, and request all to decide which drafts in their opinion is more effective and prone to spurious polls..
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chap-03 : Summary of Shri Varun Gandhiji's recall procedure
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The link to text/pdf version of Varunji's draft is given in comment to this FB post
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The summary as I see it is :
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Say a Loksabha Constituency has 20 lakh voters. Say the MP had won election, and had got say 550,000 votes. And votes against him were over 550,000 but were divided.
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(3a) Those who want recall will need to get signatures of 25% of all voters i.e. get signatures of 5 lakh voters
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(3b) The names of people who demand recall will become available to govt officer and may become available to existing MP legally or illegally. That those who demand recall, their names will become defacto public.
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(3c) Once signatures of 5 lakh voters is gathered, ECI etc will do signature verification
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(3d) If ECI concludes that signatures are genuine, then ECI will conduct a recall poll
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(3e) Over 75% i.e. over 15 lakh must vote for recall, and and then and then only recall of MP will happen.
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(3f) If recall happens, then there will be new election.
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Now the expelled MP may contest next election, and may win that election if he gets say 550,000 votes and votes against him are divided as they were in the first elections. This is one event possible in Shri Varunji's draft.
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chap-04 : Summary of Right to Recall Party's RTR MP draft
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Say a Loksabha Constituency has 20 lakh voters. Say an MP won election, and had got say 550,000 votes.
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(4a) After that general or bye election, any person eligible to become MP may register his name as replacement candidate for existing MP. Existing MP's name will get automatically registered as #1.
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(4b) A voter can approve existing MP and may also approve any of the at most 5 candidates. To approve, the voter has to personally go Patwari's office to file approvals. The voter can cancel approval anyday. And voter can file / cancel approval anyday --- there is no time limit.
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(4c) And approvals will come on website of ECI --- so approvals will be open. i.e. if Citizen X has approved say candidate A, B and C, then ECI's website will show to public that Citizen X has approved A, B and C along with name and voterid of citizen X. Varunji's signature gathering is also open i.e. names of people who signed for recall will become known to anyone who wishes to see. And there is no signature gathering. The voter directly goes to Patwari's office to submit his approvals. Verification of identity is immediate.
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(4d) Later, voter may file / cancel approval via SMS / APP etc when ECI makes that facility available.
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(4e) Now if any one replacement candidate gets more approval than sitting MP and gets approval more than (votes MP got + 5% of TOTAL voters ) = 550,000 + (5% of 20,00,000 ) = 650,000 in our example, then and THEN ONLY there will be a recall poll
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(4f) In recall poll, sitting MP need NOT fill form and his name will be #1.
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(4g) The change of MP will happen if and only if a candidate gets more votes than sitting MP and he gets (votes MP got in past election + 5% of TOTAL) = 550,000 + (5% * 20,00,000) = 650,000 in our example. Otherwise, recall poll will be declared void and sitting MP will continue
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We request all to note that - in recall poll, following condition is met
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(4.1) say the 550,000 who had voted for MP in the previous election still want existing MP to continue AND (4.2) say support of replacement candidate is is below 550,000
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THEN, these 550,000 voters will NOT need to even take pain to vote. Because as long as replacement candidate gets below 650,000 votes, the existing MP will continue.
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So our proposed recall procedure causes zero pain to those who wish status quo to continue as long as those who want to change status quo are more in number than previous election.
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[ LATER - A later proposal will use range voting in which voter can give -100 to 100 marks to candidates. Range Voting is immune to Arrow's USELESS Impossibility Theorem, The Approval System used above is also immune to Arrow's USELESS Impossibility Theorem, But Range Voting is better than Approval Voting because Range Voting enables voter to specify more.]
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chap-05 : Summary of comparison of two proposed procedures
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(5a) In our proposed draft, the voter has to PERSONALLY appear at Patwari's office to file his approvals and thus indirectly ask for recall poll. There is NO signature gathering, as is in Shri Varunji's procedure.
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(5b) In our recall procedure, the voter's approvals become public and come on ECI's website. In Varunji's proposal, the signatures for recall are submitted to ECI (or designated officer), and legally or illegaly, the signatures can be obtained by anyone. So in BOTH cases, the names, voterid etc of those who want recall will become public.
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(5c) In our proposed RTR draft, a recall poll and actual recall will NOT happen if sitting MP is still most popular of all candidates. Whereas in Shri Varunji's procedure, there is very high possibility that a recall poll will happen even if sitting MP is most popular, and a recall may also happen even if sitting MP is most popular.
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(5d) In our procedure, when a replacement candidate has over 5% more support than existing MP had and existing MP has, then recall / replacement are likely to happen. a recall is very likely to happen when a candidate is more popular than existing MP. But in Varunji's procedure, it is possible that recall will NOT happen even if a candidate is now far far more popular than existing MP.
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(5e) The only "advantage" of Varunji's proposed procedure is that it is "simple" !! But if flawed procedure is simple, then a complex but less flawed procedure is better. So this advantage of simplicity is pointless.
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chap-06 : Why is personal appearance is better than signature gathering
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Shri Varunji's procedure needs signature gathering of as many as 25% of voters. Most Loksabha constituencies have some 20 lakh voters now. So the volunteers will need to collect some 5 lakh signatures.
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In our proposed procedure, the voters who want change will have to appear in person at Patwari's office on anyday of their choice.
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Following are the reasons why the appearance based procedure we have proposed is better
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(6a) Some 50% of adult voters in India dont know how to sign !!! So if in signature gathering, then they cant participate in thr process at all. Whereas in our procedure, even those who dont know how to sign, can appear at Patwari's office and submit their approvals. They may take help of their trusted literate friends or relatives.
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(6b) And what is worse is --- as of today, District Collector or ECI doesnt have signature specimen of even 1% of voters !!! And how will they verify 5 lakh signatures !! In bank, signature verification is superficial if amount is small and if cheque is issued to account holder by that bank. Here, collector doesnt issue any cheque book like book to voter similar to cheque book bank issues. Also, bank takes signature specimen when account holder opens account,. No signature of voter is taken when voter is registered. So here too, our appearance based procedure is better than signature based procedure proposed by Shri Varunji,
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(6c) Signature can be forged. But in procedure that we have proposed, the voter has to personally appear at Patwari's office. The patwari will take his picture and finger print, So if one person tries to impersonates 2 or more voters, then the finger print matching will catch the duplications. So forgery is far far less likely, and will get traced, in our proposed system, And the Patwari has voter list of all voters, and so he can do a verification of the voter. IOW, appearance based procedure we have proposed is far far less clumsy than signature gathering Varunji's has proposed
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(6d) In our proposal, it is possible for voter to file approval via SMS from registered mobile or from App. For this, ECI will have to allow voters to specify their mobile number in voter list, and ECI will need to implement SMS processing server, It is very much possible. Whereas, in signature gathering, it is not possible.
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(6e) In Varunji's proposal, there can be multiple unconnected persons working to get signature for recall. So voter may end up signing several recall petitions , and may also unknowingly sign twice or thrice in same recall petition. This can create a lot of confusion.
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Now one may say that approval filing in our system is open,. i.e. when a voter comes to Patwari's office in our proposal, his approvals will come on ECI's website in away all may see. But signatures in Varunji's proposal are also open. So on this issue of lack of confidentiality, it is equal equal.
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chap-07 : Condition for recall poll is less wasteful in our proposal
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A recall poll in RRP's proposal will happen ONLY when at least one candidate has at least 5% more approval than votes sitting MP got. Such candidate has some chances of winning a recall poll. So recall poll is less likely to be spurious.
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Whereas in proposal of Shri Varun Gandhiji, recall happens when 25% voters demand it !!! So lets say a Loksabha constituency has 20,00,000 voters and say winner got say 6 lakh votes. Then it is very much possible to get 5 lakh signatures against him anyday !!! The 5 lakh voters' signatures against him does NOT show any possibility that someone else is now likely to get more votes than sitting MP.
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So there are high chances of wasteful recall polls in Varunji's procedure, where chances of recall poll are less in our proposed procedures.
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chap-08 : Outcome of recall poll is likely to be wasteful in Varunji's proposal, whereas wasteful outcome is NOT possible in our proposal
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in Varunji's procedure, if and only if when 75% voters' demand for recall will result into expulsion of MP and a new poll. Now in new poll, it is more than likely that 25% who supported MP vote for that MP and the opposing 75%'s votes get divided and none gets more than 25%. So the election followed by successful recall poll will still result into election of same MP. Election of same MP is NOT unethical. But recall poll should NOT have had happened in such case.
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In our case, the replacement will happen ONLY if a replacement candidate has obtained at 5% more approvals than votes that that MP got. And voter has option of approving sitting MP as well. So if more voters want sitting MP, then it is unlikely that someone else will get higer approval. So spurious recall poll is unlikely to happen.
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chap-09 : Failure to have recall poll even when recall is needed
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And in large number of cases, even when recall is desired by population, Varunji's procedure will fail. Whereas our procedure will be successful.
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eg say there are 20,00,000 voters and say winner A had got 700,000 votes in election in which he became MP. Say after some time, someone else X has support of 900,000 voters. But in case of Varunji's procedure, recall of A will NOT happen. Whereas in our case, recall of A and his replacement with X will happen
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chap-10 : Coclusion
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Varunji's intentions are noble, and there is NO doubt in that. But a flawed recall procedure will only strengthen those who oppose RTR.
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Our proposed RTR MP procedure is better than RTR MP procedure proposed by Shri Varunji. So we request Varunji to replace his draft with our RTR MP draft. And we request all activists and voters to request Varunji to do same.
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For links to drafts of Varunji and our drafts, pls see first comment of his post