Rajya Sabha, Council of States
L V Nagarajan (May 2021)
In any democratic institution, decisions taken by the majority will generally be meaningless & usually will turn out to be wrong, unless adequate forums & opportunities are given for the expression of minority views. In this respect, we know very well that, a two-party system is not as great a solution, and at the same time any multi party system is not as bad, as both of them are made out to be. The fault is in the electoral system. While it will be too drastic a change for any large country like India to adopt any of the existing PR (Proportional Representation) systems, some kind of proportional representation will have to be adopted early to avoid such problems as non-representation, misrepresentation and under-representation of political minorities, racial minorities, and women.
Extensive debate took place in the Constituent Assembly regarding the utility or otherwise of a Second Chamber, such as Rajya Sabha, in independent India and ultimately, it was decided to have a bicameral legislature for India mainly because:
- Many felt it was required to stress on the importance of a federal system of Government for such a vast country with immense diversities.
- A second chamber known as the ‘Council of States’, or ‘Rajya Sabha’, therefore, should be created with altogether different composition and method of elections.
- The election of members to this Council should ensure proportional representation. For this reason election of members as a group will be required, by means of single transferable voting system.
- An element of dignity and prestige should be added to the Council of States. The Vice-President of India will be the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha to ensure the dignity of the House.
(https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/single-transferable-vote/)
How does the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system work? What are the advantages of this STV system?Instead of electing a single person at a time, a group of representatives are elected to reflect the diversity of opinions in the area.
- For example to get one person of a party to be elected, the party needs only 51% majority vote. Whereas if two persons of a party to be elected at the same time, the party needs 67% majority. For three persons of a party to be elected at the same time, the party needs more than 75% majority. This situation facilitates election of representatives from other parties also.
- Suppose a party has 60% majority. While they can easily elect a single representative with 51% votes, which means the remaining 9% vote will be wasted. This could lead to indifference from qualified voters. Where as in a STV system where multiple candidates are present, this 9% also will be valuable in getting elected the most favoured person in the opposition party, as these excess votes get automatically shifted to the next party in the order of preference as indicated in the ballot. .
The representatives of each State and two Union territories are elected by the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies, in accordance with the above STV system to get a ‘somewhat proportional representation‘.
However the body of elected representatives of legislatures themselves are elected by a (mis-represented) majority vote of the citizens. The Rajya Sabha consists of 233 elected members. The quota of members for each state is determined based on population of each state. This in itself is again ‘a misrepresentation’. For a true federal government, it is not correct to get representatives based strictly on population.
As an example, the Senate constituted under the US constitution has equal representation of two senators for each state, big or small.
| Alaska | 63,267.26 Sq Miles | Largest State area wise |
| Hawai | 6423 Sq miles | smallest State |
| California | 39,370,000 | Most Populous State |
| Wyoming | 581,075 | least Populous State |
All the above states have equal representation of two senators each.
We may not be able to do the same in India. But however there is a need to free both LOK SABHA and Rajya Sabha state-wise membership strength from strict population criteria.
Already states like TN are Kerala are complaining to CEC about the constitutional requirement to reduce their membership in LS, based on their reduced relative population as compared to UP and Bihar. They are objecting to being punished for successful population control from day-1. Hence a proposal to re-adjust both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha seats is made as shown Table-1, below, It is roughly based on present population, which will not be changed as per any future drop or increase in population of the state.
Professor Sridhar Narayanan of Stanford University Management School, USA makes the following observations:
The original purpose of “upper houses” was to
1. Allow for a more mature, deliberative body that is not subject to the passions of the time. This was the rationale behind the Senate in the US constitution.
2. To allow members who might otherwise not be electable but still valuable to be part of the legislative process (i.e.) Older members who cannot stand up to the rigors of electoral politics, professionals and other people of wisdom. The name “elder house” points to this function of the upper house.
3. Provide some degree of continuity – in a Parliamentary system without a fixed tenure. This was seen as providing institutional continuity and not allowing the immediate, rapidly varying political climate to dictate long-term policy formation.
But these original aims have been distorted by the party system. This write-up describes them in detail and provides some food for thought. The big question is how to bring about changes in the system, when those responsible for changing it are beneficiaries of the current system and have vested interests in keeping it this way.”
The elected members of the respective state legislative assemblies elect their quotas of Rajya Sabha members on the basis of first transferable vote. Most of the time the political parties know exactly how many of their own nominees can be elected by them and they nominate as many and get them elected by issuing a whip to their legislators. Occasionally they nominate one or two extra persons, to garner the possibility of obtaining the splinter votes of smaller parties who have no sufficient strength to get their own quota of men elected. Hence it will be fair to say that even these 233 elected members of Rajya Sabha, (RS), are mostly nominated by political parties and their election process is a mere formality.
In their noble wisdom, the Consembly members have made the Rajya Sabha, once constituted, never ceasing to exist. Instead, in the present system, a third of the members ofRajya Sabha retire every two years, necessitating re-election only for those seats. TheRajya Sabha elections could happen twice or thrice during the 5-year tenure of a state assembly. Sometimes it may occur at a point when a state assembly tenure is about to be completed before a new general elections. It is possible that after the new elections the composition of parties in the new assembly could be vastly different, though the comparative percentage votes polled by them may not be as much different. This situation is particularly true in a multi party democracy.
The stated objective of the formation of Rajya Sabha and electing members was to be in accordance with the system of ‘proportional representation‘ by means of the single transferable vote. But under the present system does this really work this way?
In the Annexure, a sample case has been taken to demonstrate the election process for Rajya Sabha from a fictitious state (call it as, Venkiah Nadu). In this sample case, a Legislative Assembly of 100 members has been shown, how it elects its 12 Rajya Sabha Members. The detailed election process is described, assuming that it elects 6 members (i.e., half of its total of 12 Members) at the same time.
Similarly we can work out for other options, (i.e.), all 12 Rajya Sabha members to be elected at one go, or, 4 Rajya Sabha members to be elected every 2 years, as per the existing practice. The voting process is described in detail in the annexure. However, the final tally for all the three options will be as tabulated below:
It is very clear from the above table that the ruling party or the leader of the ruling alliance (The Greens Party with 42 Seats in the Assemby)) has the complete dominance in the Rajya Sabha election process. Having election for 1/3 of themembers every 2 years helps the ruling party in this respect.
As per an earlier paragraph, the idea of Consembly was to get some kind of a proportional representation for the Rajya Sabha, to get even minority opinion shared in the national forum. It was working well somewhat as intended for about 40 years till 1990. But once the coalition politics started taking root, since then, Rajya Sabha rarely represents any minority opinions of either far-left, or any new emerging political forum. This could be one of the reasons for increasing political violence in India.
- You may see that the scheme of retiring 1/3 of members every 2 years is also working against this intention. Since the number of members elected is so small that the major parties get much more than their proportionate share of members.
- SinceRajya Sabha elections take place once in two years for 1/3 rd of the seats, if one Legislative assembly gets to elect members 3 time in their tenure of 5 years, then the next assembly will get the chance to electRajya Sabha members only twice during their tenure which is not a fair democracy.
- RS memberships rarely represent the party strengths in the Legislative assemblies. It never represents the proportional strengths of different parties till the very end of its tenure.
- The parties in legislative assembly know exactly how many member they can get elected. By careful calculation and planning they can get their nominees elected.
- They also issue a whip to their party members about 1st and 2nd choice of their voting. In addition the secrecy of voting is only nominal as the ballot papers are supposed to be shown to the whip before voting.
- It is so easy to get elected to the Rajya Sabha that this becomes a part of party’s electoral alliance.
- The 6-year tenure of Rajya Sabha is too long, that many times its members lose interest in parliamentary affairs. Some of them resign and some of them expire also.
- There is no strict restriction for the candidate to be a voter in the respective state to contest and represent the state in Rajya Sabha. P Chidambaram can get elected to Rajya Sabha by Maharashtra Assembly. Nirmala Sitaraman can represent Gujarat.
- Rajya Sabha tenure and membership rules are so biased, that even though BJP/NDA have absolute majority in Lok sabha for the last 8 years, BJP still does not command majority in Rajya Sabha.
Conclusion:
It is felt that the Rajya Sabha election process, somehow, delays the democracy. While it is a good idea to ensure smooth transition between regimes after a massive Lok Sabha election, by making the Rajya Sabha as a continuously living entity, we need to take a relook at the election process to avoid this extended delay in democracy.
A few suggestions:
- Since the Rajya Sabha, has been constituted for the first time on 3rd April 1952, and it never ceased to exist. Every 2 years, only 1/3 of members retire after 6 years tenure by rotation. And elections are held every two years for these vacancies. As argued earlier this leads uneven number ofRajya Sabha elections between successive tenures of the same Legislative Assembly. This is considered less of democracy. To avoid this
- We may consider reducing the tenure of membership of the Rajya Sabha also to 5 years. Then the election for 1/3 of the members will become due every 20 months.
- Or, we may reduce the tenure to 4 years and make elections every 16 months.
- We may also consider electing all the Members of theRajya Sabha at one go at the beginning of the regime change after Assembly elections. This pool of elected candidates will take office at their due time when any 1/3 of Rajya Sabha members retire.
- Or, at least we can make ½ of Rajya Sabha members retire every three years, so Assembly had to elect larger members at one time so that smaller parties have a better chance to get elected.
- It should be ensured the first election to theRajya Sabha takes place during the first year of any newly elected Assembly. Similarly, TheRajya Sabha election should not take place during the last year of tenure of any Assembly.
- A major problem is growing, in allocation of LS/RS seats among the different states based on population. It will be better to take care of this early. The seats for all the states roughly based on the current population can be discussed and decided and fixed ever for the future.
- Finally I am coming to an important suggestion which will not require any amendment but only an agreement among all major political parties.
- We can implement 33% quota for women very easily in Rajya Sabha. From 15th Aug 2021, on the occasion of 75th year of our Independence, let all political parties agree for any Rajya Sabha elections for the first 1/3 rd of the seats being vacated, will be filled up only by women candidates.
- The next 1/3rd of the seats whenever they are due for election will be filled up only by professionals (of both genders) with at least 20 years of proven experience in their field of expertise. We may also stipulate that such a candidate should not have contested elections to any Legislative Assembly or Parliament in the last 5 years.
- The last 1/3rd of the seats whenever they are due for election will be filled up only by seniors of more than 60 years of age (of both genders). Herein we may stipulate that such candidates should not have contested elections to any Legislative Assembly or Parliament in the last 10 years.
- The President may take suo-moto action on this proposal by going ahead and announcing his intention to abide by this proposal in nomination
The above four provisions will definitely ensure that our Rajya Sabha will become a respectable body of ‘elders’ as intended by Consembly members.
Hope all the political parties will agree to these proposals.
Comments:
- Professor Sridhar Narayanan, School of Management Stanford University:
“Nice detailed write-up – enjoyed reading it. But the original aims Rajya Sabha have been distorted by the party system. Your write-up describes them in detail and provides some food for thought. The big question is how to bring about changes in the system, when those charged with changing it are beneficiaries of the current system and have vested interests in keeping it this way.
- Sri. S Ravi, senior project manager, TCS:
“The suggestion to reduce the “tenure” of elected members is in line with “batch reduction” or agile concept in the industry. The idea is that the ongoing rapid changes in the environment, exploding technological capabilities and creative innovations have forced almost all industries to reduce lead times of their services and products. Citizens have started demanding results from their elected bodies in months instead of years. Hence breaking down long-term goals into smaller than usual batches for small-tenured legislators and executives to handle may serve citizens more agilely. Making and correcting mistakes early is also enabled by this approach: the elected representatives’ more frequent “show-and-tell” may enable quicker course-corrections.
- Sri. Shiva Giri, Senio Executive (Retd), Reliance Industries, Mumbai:
Nice. You have taken lot of efforts to come out with such detailed analysis and suggestions.
In point no. 6 of conclusion, you have made suggestions on reservation for women, experts etc. This will never be accepted. The parties use RS to accommodate their party-men as a reward for the party work they had done.
Personally I feel the reservation for women is a farce. Just like reservation for SC/ST have not benefitted most of the people from SC / ST category, same would be the case for women’s reservation.
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Annexure
A sample of Rajya Sabha Polling Procedure
Sample State: (Fictitious) Venkiah Nadu
Strength of Legislative Assembly: 100
Allocated Rajya Sabha Seats: 12
Election to be held for: 6 – RS seats
Comparative Parties’ strengths in the Assembly:
Ruling Coalition: 61 / Greens (42) + Congress (17
+Leftists (2)
Opposition: 39 / BJP (29) + Saffron (10)
To elect N people by using the existing system Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, as per the recommended formula, the minimum Votes required by each candidate L, is to be between M/N ≥ L > M/(N+1)
Applying the above formula for the Assembly 100 members, we get
| No. (N) of Electees | 100/N = | Max | Votes Needed | Minimum | = 100(N+1) |
| 1 | 100/1 = | 100.00 | ≥ L > | 50.00 | = 100/2 |
| 2 | 100/2 = | 50.00 | ≥ L > | 33.33. | = 100/3 |
| 3 | 100/3 = | 33.33. | ≥ L > | 25.00 | = 100/4 |
| 4 | 100/4 = | 25.00 | ≥ L > | 20.00 | = 100/5 |
| 5 | 100/5 = | 20.00 | ≥ L > | 16.66. | = 100/6 |
| 6 | 100/6 = | 16.66. | ≥ L > | 14.29 | = 100/7 |
| 7 | 100/7 = | 14.29 | ≥ L > | 12.50 | = 100/8 |
| 8 | 100/8 = | 12.50 | ≥ L > | 11.11 | = 100/9 |
| 9 | 100/9 = | 11.11 | ≥ L > | 10.00 | = 100/10 |
| 10 | 100/10 = | 10.00 | ≥ L > | 9.09 | = 100/11 |
| 11 | 100/11 = | 9.09 | ≥ L > | 8.33 | = 100/12 |
| 12 | 100/12 = | 8.33 | ≥ L > | 7.69 | = 100/13 |
AS per the above Table For M= 100 and N = 6, we get
L = minimum Votes required by each candidate will be [ 16 2/3 ≥ L > 14 2/7 ] which means minimum number of votes required to get elected will be 15. When the Electoral Officer (EO) opens the ballots he is very likely to see the following:
Now the EO considers first the Voting pattern as their First Choice. He can easily declare, out of the11 candidates contesting for 6 positions, candidates A1, A2, B1 and the candidate X1 wins this first round of counting as their votes are > 15 votes, the minimum required, thus consuming a total of 60 Votes The other 2 remaining seats will have to wait for the next round of 40 votes. This is simple.
Voting pattern as their First Choice
| A1 | A2 | A3 | A4 | B1 | B2 | C1 | |
| Greens 1st group (16 of 42) | 16 | ||||||
| Greens 2nd group (16 of 42) | 16 | ||||||
| Balance (10 of 42) | 10 | ||||||
| Congress-1 (16 of 17) | 16 | ||||||
| Balance (1 of 17) | 1 | ||||||
| Left (All 2 of 2) | 2 | ||||||
| X1 | X2 | X3 | Y1 | ||||
| BJP -1 (16 of 29) | 16 | ||||||
| Balance 13 of 29 | 13 | ||||||
| Saffron (all10 of 10) | 10 |
However a nice change happens here. The 16th vote obtained by these candidates in the first round is really not needed. But we cannot afford to waste their voting preferences. Though the16th vote in the group of 1st votes, in each case, is for the candidates A1, A2, B1 and X1, now there are good reasons to find out their second preferences. Now let us see what EO gets, when he checks what the voters have indicated as their 2nd choice in their ballot.
Voting pattern as their Second Choice
| A1 | A2 | A3 | A4 | B1 | B2 | C1 | |
| Greens 1st group (16 of 42) | *OK | 1(16) | |||||
| Greens 2nd group (16 of 42) | *OK | 1(16) | |||||
| Balance (10 of 42) | *10 | ||||||
| Congress (16 of 17) | 1(16) | *ok | |||||
| Balance (1 of 17) | 1(1) | *1 | |||||
| Left (All 2 of 2) | 1(1) | 1(1) | *2 |
| X1 | X2 | X3 | Y1 | |||
| BJP -1 (16 of 29) | *ok | 1(16) | ||||
| Balance 13 of 29 | *13 | |||||
| Saffron (all10 of 10) | 1(10) | 9(10) | *10 |
Orange OK indicates “elected in the 1st round”.
Star indicates voting in the 1st round
Normal figures indicate voting the 2nd round
j(k) indicates out of (k) Votes in the first round (j) votes as second preference
Now EO considers the Voting pattern as their Second Choice. He notices the candidate A3 has already obtained 10 first choice votes. He needs 5 more second choice vote to be elected to RS as 5th candidate. Same way, the candidate X2 has already obtained 13 first choice votes. The16th extra vote in the group of 1st votes for the already winners, A1, A2, B1, have all indicated A3 as their second Choice that brings A3 tally to 13. The lone Congress man who voted for B2 in the first round, has also indicated A3 as his second Choice. Hence B2 and similarly C1 becomes the first two candidates to get eliminated, as there is no way they can secure 15 votes. Hence we may also consider the 2nd round votes of C1, which has gone one each to A3 ad A4. With these two additional 2nd round votes, A3 secures 15 votes and gets elected to RS.
At the end of 2nd round the position will be as below
| A1 | A2 | A3 | A4 | B1 | B2 | C1 | |
| ok | ok | ok | X | ok | X | X | |
| Greens | 15 | 15 | 15 | ||||
| Balance | |||||||
| Congress | 15 | ||||||
| Balance | |||||||
| Left | 1 |
Figures with Pink Highlighting indicates election in the 2nd Round
| X1 | X2 | X3 | Y1 | |||
| ok | ok | X | X | |||
| BJP | 15 | 15 | ||||
| Saffron | 9 |
Normal figures indicate unelected candidates & their votes.
Now Looking at X2 who has already secured 13 votes in the first round, get his extra 2 votes, one from the 16th vote of X1 who has already won, and another one from Saffron’s 2nd round vote.
Hence as per the above:-
A1, A2, B1 and X1 are elected in 1st round
A3 and X2 are elected in the 2nd round
A4 (1), B2(0), C1(0), X3(9) and Y1(0) were all not elected. The votes obtained by them are within brackets, which sums up to 10 unused votes.
It can be observed how cumbersome the process is. However in the actual case experts can calculate and tell different parties how their members should vote and achieve optimized output. They exactly vote as per that scheme and get their choice candidates elected.
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OPEN MIND 