Right To Recall

Quite contrary to my belief in Team Anna's campaign in India Against Corruption, I am of the opinion, Indian democracy is not yet matured/ready for implementing "Right to recall" the elected candidates. I understand Team Anna must have made due diligence while proposing it, but as an individual, I feel the time has yet to come.


Let's see some influencing facts:

1. Indian democracy, still, is largely made up of people who do not think much before voting for a candidate. It is driven more by the then-current-issues rather than a holistic view of the situation. Neither the people take enough effort to understand the candidate and his/her stand on various current issues nor they follow up or persuade them after the election for fulfilling the election manifesto. If it would have been otherwise, Congress couldn't have been putting up the same agenda of "Garibi Hatao" for last 50 odd years!!
2. Additionally, the local politics usually revolves around personal rivalries. Just before the elections and even during the campaign one can see how many complaints get filed against the candidates by their opponents, simply to keep the opponent busy or to divert the public attention.
3. Media at local constituencies is not strong enough. Most of the media that plays role is forming or busting the opinions is largely covering the state level or national level issues. Not many local channels and newspaper are really influential.
4. Most of the election sees the voting to the tune of only 50 to 60 percent, at times even lower. Given the fact that there more than two candidates in every constituency, each candidate is going to be representing around 20 to 25% of the total eligible voters.
5. Bogus voting is still a big problem in many of the constituencies.

And now impact of these facts if we implement "Right to recall":

1. Opposition would herd the people to sign the petition of Recall for really petty issues. This would create problems for the elected candidates, specially for those are really doing good work for the constituency/state/nation.
2. There would be multiple attempts by the politically unsatisfied folks and rising stars to oust the seating MLAs and MPs just to expedite their own career. Political parties may also help such incidents to curb the powers of certain individuals.
3. There could be some real issues at a particular constituency, which the corresponding representative is not paying attention to. However, the media is not so powerful to form the opinion at such local levels, which would help people analyse the facts and make the decisions.
4. Assuming if we implement the "right to recall", there are chances the whining people would be those who did not vote or those who had voted to the candidate who didn't get elected.

Having said all this, I am definitely in favor of being accountability to the elected candidates. However, "Right To Recall" may not be the right option at this stage. May be some other means need to be thought out.