Election Commission of India is an autonomous body under Indian constitution. Since 1950 there have been changes in conducting election and Goa was the first State to replace ballot papers by electronic voting machine.
However there are no changes in rules and conduct for candidate to contest elections. All government servants and PSU, central government staff retire by 58 to 60 years but there is no age bar to contest elections. There should be some guidelines as to candidates’ qualification, age and other activities of the contestant.
EC should come out with some stringent rules for candidates. One should not be allowed to switch party for 5 years irrespective of losing or winning elections, age should be upto 55 yrs to contest any election, and the minimum qualification should be graduate.
Modern technology can be used for voters instead of standing in a queue for long hours to vote and save time and money on the election process.
Not more than one person in the family should be given ticket to contest. With such restrictions we can have free and fair elections so that voters and citizens can elect their leaders.
Today candidates have right to shift from one party to another several times but voters have to elect based on available candidates or NOTA as option.
Hence EC should have some rules to follow by candidates to give our country a better future.
