It was the nastiest Rajya Sabha election in a while. With 27 of 57 seats up for grabs in different states, the political temperature shot up to unbearable levels, and the EC was forced to consider countermanding the polls in Karnataka. The peculiar goings-on in Haryana showed how far MLAs could go to defy their parties. The violence in UP was another extreme example of what our MLAs can do. While many issues must be sorted out in case repoll demands are made in some states, the larger question is how to find a way to avoid this messy method of holding an indirect election for MPs to sit in the Upper House of Parliament.
There are far better ways to elect MPs by proportional representation, as envisaged when the Constitution was drawn up for a bicameral Parliament. The proportional vote can, for instance, go to parties which will be given the number of MPs they can nominate to the Rajya Sabha in proportion to the seats they won in Assembly elections.
It is by allowing individual franchise that problems arise in cross-voting and uncontrollable desertions by MLAs as the anti-defection law doesn’t apply to Rajya Sabha polls. Such a sweeping reform needs a national consensus, that in the current political climate may appear impossible. But if political sagacity prevails, nothing is really impossible. The parties themselves should agree that the power to nominate members is best left to them. And the sooner the current system is done away with, the better for all.
