Dr Gaurav Bhaskar, Karnal, Haryana

Electroral Reforms for a Shining India

Election is a process where the people choose a leader by way of voting to work for them and represent
the nation in the world. In democracy every citizen has the right to vote and choose the leader of
his/her choice if the voter is eighteen years or above in age. Also there are certain laid criteria for the
candidate to be eligible to become a leader and fight election. I have a question that when there is some
eligibility criteria for the candidate then why not certain criteria for the voters apart from the age. A
person with Intelligence quotient (IQ) 30 and another with 90 both have the same one vote to select the
candidate in the election who will further run the country for the next five years. There has to be some
difference in the voting rights or the number of votes per person as is the case of election of the
President of India.

To have such difference we need guidelines that will govern the rules for the voting rights of the citizens
of India. In my opinion voting right of and individual should not depend only on the age of the person
but also his/her acumen. Choosing a candidate from amongst many is a responsible job and the same
should be taken seriously by the citizens of the nation. No country can progress if the citizens are not
responsible and efficient in selecting their leaders.

To make each vote count we can devise a mechanism that will not only help people choose the right
leader but will also make people more patriot. In this system every voter in the country should appear in
a certification program that will evaluate the person’s capability to select the right and the wrong along
with the basic intelligence quotient (IQ). Based on the score generated through this exam every person
will eligible for the number of votes he/she carries for selecting a candidate in the election. This
certification should be valid for 5 years and should be re-evaluated after every 5 years in the same
manner. The score generated for each individual will be saved only in the central computer system and
will be linked to the respective adhaar cards. Nobody will get to know their score nor will any other
person be able to retrieve the data. The exam for this certification should be held round the year and
with prior appointment. Any person not willing to take the exam should stand disqualified to vote in the
elections.

The syllabus for the exam should be made very simple apart from the IQ questions. A total of 50
questions with one mark each out of this 40 should be general questions about the nation and the
political system of the nation and rest 50 questions should be for judging the IQ of the person. A booklet
as a study material should be available to every citizen and 40 questions should come from this booklet.
These questions are just meant to make people understand the political system and then vote and elect
a leader.

People should be divided into four categories based on the score they get in the certification test. These
four categories should be

Grade I 75% to 100%

Grade II 50% to 75%
Grade III 25% to 50%

Dr Gaurav Bhaskar
Mann Ki Baat Page 1
 Dr Gaurav Bhaskar, Karnal, Haryana

Grade IV 0% to 25%

People with grade I should get 3 votes, grade II should get 2 votes, grade III should get 1 vote and grade
IV should get zero votes as their voting right. Whenever the citizens cast their vote in the elections their
equivalent number of votes should be counted accordingly by the software as everything should be
linked with the adhaar card details. For example a person with grade I if cast his vote for party “X” then
automatically the software will cast 3 votes to party “X” and if person with grade IV cast his vote for
party “Y” then automatically the software will cast zero vote to party “Y”. in this way a well informed
citizen of the country will have greater weightage in selecting the leaders and hopefully good leaders
will come out shining with bright colours and will lead the nation to step ahead of the other countries of
the world.

This same exam should also be used as criteria for filing the nomination as a candidate. If a person lies in
grade IV then he/she should be disqualified to fight the election unless he/she reappear and gets good
score from grade I to III.

Benefits of implementing this system

1. Persons with caliber will have the chance to select a good leader for the nation based on his/her
credentials and past work.
2. Political parties will not be able to polarize the election results based on the money distribution
and other perks as nobody knows who has got how many votes. Neither parties nor voters.
3. Good candidates with fair political image will get the chance to become the elected leader of
the community.

Dr Gaurav Bhaskar
Mann Ki Baat Page 2