G.S.

PAPER II CONSTITUTION & POLITY

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE ACT,

1951

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THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE ACT, 1951

1. INTRODCUTION
The founding fathers of India opted for a Parliamentary democracy as the appropriate model for a large
and diverse country like ours. Conducted once in a five year, general election of India is an attempt in the
direction.
THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE ACT, 1951 is a model Act which provides the legislative
framework for:

The conduct of elections to the Parliament and state assemblies.

The qualifications and disqualifications for membership.

The code of conduct against illegal practices

Election Commission (EC), a constitutional body, is assigned to take the mammoth exercise of conducting
general elections under the act. The code of conduct is developed by the commission for carrying the
elections in fair manner. However, the elections are marred with several issues, a few of which are as
identified:
1.1 Criminalization of Politics
The criminalisation of our political system is a major challenge to parliamentary democracy.
National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) has identified problems
related to the criminalisation of politics in many areas e.g. role of Mafia in elections,

black money

generation for political funding, fraudulent voting, booth capturing, intimidation of voters, engineered
mistakes in counting votes, incongruities in delimitation of the constituencies etc.
Besides, Vohra Committee has also identified the politician-criminal nexus, a menace to the Indian
political system. The committee highlights that: The nexus between the criminal gangs, police,
bureaucracy and politicians has come out clearly in various parts of the country and that some political
leaders become the leaders of these gangs/armed senas and over the years get themselves elected to local
bodies, State assemblies, and national parliament.
A number of remedies have been proposed by the various committees on the criminalization of politics in
the country.

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