Bangalore, Jul 12: South India Coalition for Proportional Electoral System will be launched on Saturday, July 13, at 10am at Senate Hall, Central College Campus, Bangalore, with an aim to advocate for inclusive representation to all sections and a fair share of power to all people.
Addressing a news conference, here, Manohar Elavarthi of Praja Rajakiya Vedike explained about Karnataka Elections-2013 where the Congress party with 37 per cent votes bagged 120 seats (54%of seats) which made it possible to form the government on its own. This is a flow in the present system, while KJP and others who got 10% and 30% of votes respectively have only bagged 6 and 16 seats (3 and 7%). This means the voter's who voted for KJP and other parties were not able to get their representatives elected. Marginalized sections of society including women, people with disabilities, sexual minorities, dalits/adivasis, minorities will only be able to get a fair and true representation in the proportionate representation system.
He spoke about how money power, muscle power, caste and communalism can be reduced to a large extent in the proportionate representation system.
“India follows a Plurality Electoral System, which is also known as the First Past The Post (FPTP). This system leaves a vast majority of voters unrepresented both in the Parliament and in the State Assemblies and the ruling party is determined by a simple majority, which at times have been determined by as small as 27% of votes,” he said adding that most of the time, over 60% of Indian voters are not represented and to avoid this kind of misrepresentation and to provide representatives for groups that gain a significant number of votes, many countries have shifted to PR system where groups like women, dalits, old people, disabled people and green activists get representation based on the percentage of votes polled.
Around the world, 89 countries today follow PR system and only 60 countries, mostly former colonies of the British, follow the outdated FPTP system. India's neighbor Nepal recently ushered in the Proportional Electoral system and as a result, dalits who had only one seat previously, have now more than 49 seats and sexual minorities in Nepal have also gained a parliamentary seat. The Indigenous Maori people in New Zealand have now over 20 seats as against only 4 seats in their earlier FPTP.
Besides educating people, the Coalition will also make all possible efforts to rally around political forces and voters in the country to usher in the PR system. Political leaders from all South Indian states are participating in the launch event.
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