There are three critical Rajya Sabha seats up for grabs and one Legislative Council seat, that all the three parties – the Congress, the BJP and the JD(S) -- want to win at any cost. It’s ‘cash-in’ time for some, and the time to redeem the ‘IOU’ for others. With every passing election, this ‘festival of give and take’ is taking on ever more alarming proportions. While the political stakes are clearly high, the economic dividends are bigger.
To be fair to the current players in this messy game, their predecessors have set ‘high’ standards, wooing elected representatives from smaller parties, rebels and independents. The practice has now become rampant and widespread. The elected representatives caught on tape in the ‘sting operation’ have clearly decided that that they are going to make the best of every opportunity to rake in as much as they can before they themselves go before voters again in two years’ time to seek re-election. This problem of grabby hands is compounded when larger parties need surplus votes and elected representatives from smaller parties and independents rule the roost. Each time such unsavoury practices are exposed, there are questions raised on the logic and validity of these elections, and even the very need for the Upper House comes under question.
In this context, three issues merit attention. Firstly, all discussion on money power in elections focuses on the symptom and not the disease. It needs to be recognised that elections, like the one to the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Councils, provide a useful outlet for the release of black money. No legislation or regulation is likely to curb the menace so long as the sources of that money are available. Unless the root cause is dealt with, all other remedies would be merely cosmetic and superficial.
Secondly, these elections raise questions on the rationale of the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Councils and their membership. As the name suggests, the Rajya Sabha was conceived as a ‘Council of States’. In a federal system, the Upper House of Parliament is supposed to represent and protect the interest of the states. This explains the difference in the nature of composition of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. Given the fact that the Rajya Sabha was to represent the interests of the states, the Constitution-makers provided for a bulk of the Rajya Sabha members to be elected by the state Legislative Assemblies. It was the pious hope of the Constituent Assembly that those elected to the Rajya Sabha would use the platform of the Upper House to represent the interests of the states they are elected from.
The reality over the last six decades has been vastly different. Political parties have used the ‘carrot’ of Rajya Sabha nominations to reward loyalists, rehabilitate defeated politicians, accommodate defectors and provide political sinecures to loyal retired civil servants. A study of the profile of the 1,800-odd who were elected to the Rajya Sabha over the last six decades were active in the politics of the state they were elected from or held important organisational positions in the party at the district or state levels. For many, the Rajya Sabha entry is the first election that they contested ever. Proximity to the party leadership, rather than understanding and reflecting the public perceptions in the state, and the capacity to ‘win’ votes in a tight race seem to be the key factors that help aspirants secure tickets.
It is thus no surprise that a review of the proceedings of the two Houses would indicate that issues linked to the states are raised more often in the Lok Sabha than in the Rajya Sabha. It is becoming increasingly clear that the original intention of having an Upper House in a federal system has been lost sight of and the Rajya Sabha has become a space for political accommodation for those who cannot win a direct election or for affluent ‘political entrepreneurs’ whose principal qualification is their money power.
Thirdly, if the Rajya Sabha has to authentically represent the states, a modification of the experiment tried out in Germany may be useful. In Germany, the Bundesrat is not even referred to as the Upper House but as the Other House, in order to avoid hierarchies. Each of the federal states (Landers) has a fixed quota of seats in the Bundesrat. The state government nominates the members to sit in the Bundesrat. Very often, ministers from the state attend the sessions of the Bundesrat and articulate, project and protect the interests of their states. It may be useful to consider if half the Rajya Sabha members could be selected on this basis. The rest could be elected from the state legislatures with a strict qualification norm that should include hailing from that state, proof of active involvement in state politics/government for at least a decade and/or having held an elected position at the state level. If such a change is not introduced, we will continue to see Rajya Sabha tickets being rewards for loyalty and/or a reflection of the candidates’ ability to buy votes.
Political institutions are the bedrock of democracy. Any slippage between their design and delivery, their promise and performance, their rationale and reality will strike at the root of public faith and confidence in political processes. We need to rescue our institutions from the trust deficit that the actions of those coming into them have caused.
