Former President Pranab Mukherjee said that the ruling party must take under consideration the views of all the individuals, including those who may have not voted for them while running the government.
Delivering the second Atal Bihari Vajpayee memorial lecture organized by India Foundation, a Delhi based think tank, on Monday, Mukherjee said, “as a former parliamentarian with 48 years of experience, I have a piece of advice — numerical majority gives you the right to give a stable government, but please carry on with others. Lack of popular majority forbids you from a majoritarian government, that is the message and essence of our parliamentary democracy,” quoted in Firstpost.
Mukherjee’s comment holds significance as it came in the backdrop of the passage of the highly contentious Citizenship Amendment Act.
“The Indian electorate has time and again conveyed to the ruling party that goes on to form the government, that yes, they may be entitled to form the government with a majority of the seats won, but they are also to take into consideration all those people who may not have voted for them. The mandate is to govern as a majority party with a stable government, but carry others with you,” said Mukherjee, quoted in The Indian Express.
“It is also to be noted that every time a government has behaved to the contrary, the voter has punished the incumbent in the elections that follow. Unfortunately, this message of the Indian electorate has never been clearly understood by political players,” he added.
The former president further suggested that the number of seats in the Lok Sabha should be increased to 1000 from 545 — as the population of India has increased since 1977 (the previous year in which the number of seats in Lok Sabha was increased as per the 1971 census) — along with a proportional increase of seats in the Rajya Sabha, as well as in State legislatures.
“In 1977, (the) population was 55 crore or 550 million whereas today it stands at 1.3 billion. There has been an embargo on increasing the seats in Parliament and in state assemblies till 2026. Even by 2011 census of population, the number of voters has increased per Lok Sabha constituency,” Mukherjee said. He asked for the removal of the freeze on the number of seats in the delimitation exercise.
He also advocated for general and assembly elections to transpire simultaneously, and amendment of the model code of conduct to ensure that no govt. work is halted during the election phase.
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