Shri T.S. Krishnamurthy started his career as an Indian Revenue Service officer. He served the government at various levels including  Secretary, Department of Company Affairs. He was the first Indian Revenue Service officer to become a Secretary to the Government of India as well as the Chief Election Commissioner of India.

Krishnamurthy won gold medals in History, Economics and Political Science at Mysore University. He also completed a Masters in Fiscal Studies from the University of Bath, U.K.

Post his retirement, he is a board member of various companies and NGOs, most notably, he was the Chairman of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chennai Kendra. He is the author of the book “Miracles of Democracy”, published in August 2008.

In an exclusive interview, Shri TS Krishnamurthy shares with Marie Banu how the quality of democracy can be improved in our country.

How can the quality of democracy be improved in our country?

Unfortunately, Democracy is a misused term all over the world. Many claim themselves to be democracies, but they are run by leaders in an autocratic style. As far as India is concerned, fortunately, there are good as well as bad points as well.

I have made some suggestions in my book The Miracle of Democracy. Firstly, we need to change the present electoral system as it is aiding corrupt politicians. This is because of the First Past The Post system, which means that if you have even one vote more than the others, you get elected.

My first suggestion is to change the first past poll system to representation system where minimum 33 and one third percent of the votes polled to be a precondition for success in the election. For example, if you have a constituency of two lakh voters and if ten people contest we need to split the votes proportionately – i.e. 20,000 to each of the contestants. The person with 20,001 votes or more will represent the two lakh voters. The second is about people with criminal records to be barred from contesting elections.

When I was the Election Commissioner, I had put forth a set of 22 recommendations. One of them was: ‘If a person gets a charge sheet from the court of offences punishable with imprisonment for five years or more, such persons should be deemed to be disqualified from contesting the elections’. This unfortunately, was not accepted as all the political parties seemed to be happy with the status quo. Unless some dynamic political party takes a lead and brings about a consensus, it is unlikely to happen.

The third is to have a separate law to regulate the functioning of the political parties, like many other countries. As there is a law governing Companies, Partnerships and Trusts,  we should also have one for political parties who have access to public funds. This law would spell out who can be members, how to deal with disputes, how to maintain accounts – whether the funds should be received in cash or not, and how to properly account for the donations received. Similarly, a regulation of party manifestos at the time of election is necessary as the politicians are promising freebies to a section of the voters without even indicating how they will find the money. In fact, we have told the Supreme Court that the political parties can promise to the voters public good i.e.  a stadium or a road or a dam – which cannot be pin-pointed to a particular section of people.  But, the politicians today are promising to provide various articles like laptop, grinders, television, etc. which are actually bribes and is different from public goods.

The fourth is about funding the political parties for purpose of elections. Unfortunately, the measure that the government brought in recently – the electoral bonds – is a regressive measure or a measure that is not in tune with transparency in election funding. I have also suggested a National Election Fund to which individuals and corporates can make a contribution (may be a limit can be set), and avail 100 percent tax exemption. In this proposed scheme, no individual or corporate should be allowed to give any donation to any political party and no political party will be allowed to spend any money for individual candidates except from the National Election Fund.

If some of these changes are brought about, the quality of democracy can be improved in this country.

Your experience as Chief Election Commissioner of India?

There is an impression that Election Commission has got all the powers to conduct free and fair elections, but it is not completely true. Although the Constitution gives authority to the Election Commission for conducting free and fair election, there are a number of situations where Election Commission is ineffective. With the existing powers, Election Commission has the authority only to cancel or postpone an election.

We did not have any problems in conducting elections in Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Orissa and faced challenges in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Karnataka. When compared to other states, Kerala is better as there is no violence or hatred. It is necessary that the model code of conduct which we are supposed to implement gets some teeth.

In Anantapur, recently, a party member broke a voting machine in the polling booth. All that the Election Commission could do in such circumstances is to file a FIR with the police. But, the case becomes meaningless if the person,   after the election, is from a ruling party as the lower level courts will quash the complaint. 

The Election Commission  should have some powers to disqualify or impose monetary penalties in case of serious violations, which could be challenged in the court of law. There were many instances where we had to be tough. For example, in Chapra constituency in Bihar, where Laloo Prasad was contesting we had countermanded the poll. In Haryana, the wife of the Director General of Police was contesting the elections. We asked the Chief Minister to transfer the DGP because he was directly dealing with the law and order situation. As he refused, we sent a message through the Chief Secretary that we would indefinitely postpone the election. In Kashmir, we had the terrorist problem. In order to bring credibility in the elections, we brought Urdu speaking teachers from UP and Punjab to 50 percent polling stations in Kashmir, and likewise in West Bengal.  Of course, there were some criticisms. But, we went ahead with our plans and got good results.

How do you find the present electoral system in our country?

I retired in 2005, and things have changed considerably since then.  On the whole, conducting an election has become very difficult now. There are more political parties, more politicians and less effectiveness of the State police. Therefore, there is a demand for central paramilitary forces. These are some of the unfortunate developments. But, if we can bring about some of these electoral reforms quickly, many of the problems could be solved substantially.

There is also a criticism on the Election Commission appointments that they are biased or in favour of a political party, depending on who has appointed them. We have already suggested that the Election Commission appointments should be by a collegium which would include the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India or his nominee, and Speaker of the House of representatives or leader of the opposition. 

Your thoughts on the present budget?

I was looking for some major economic thrust activities although they are trying to create conditions for the benefit of economic growth. For example, a person who wants to come and invest in India faces a lot of problems in terms of judicial delays, frequent changes in the laws (which at times makes them to pack up and go), and the interference of the government. Once you have given an approval, you should give certain conditions which they must  comply with. You can’t be changing or interfering with what has been approved on.

Profits should not be viewed as a dirty word. Profit within reasonable limits should be considered as a desirable condition for economic growth. You must give incentives for manufacturing industries that can provide employment. You can also provide incentives for honest tax payers. Capital markets needs to be revived with incentives for ploughing back the profits from sale of shares in the capital market itself.

I would say that the present budget is an interesting document, but I do not find an extraordinary push to engineer growth. The attitude of the people, particularly the regulators, for fear of vigilance or audit action take an impractical stand. Many of them are bureaucrats with no commercial or business exposure.

If they can bring a mix of bureaucrats and people with business experience – business graduates with 10 plus years of experience – and be inducted into regulatory organisations, then there will be confidence for people to do business in India. If there are decisions taken in good faith, you cannot question them.