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FPTP System

In this article we will study about the reasons for adopting the First-past-the-post (FPTP) system by India, Experience of the FPTP system etc.

Reasons for adopting the FPTP system by India: 

    • Simple system: It is extremely simple to understand even for common voters who may have no specialized knowledge about politics and elections
    • Clear choice for voters:
      • Voters have to simply endorse a candidate or a party while voting
      • It offers voters a choice not simply between parties but specific candidates
    • Issues with PR:
      • It is a complicated system which may work in a small country
      • No accountability for own locality: Voters are often asked to choose a party and the representatives are elected on the basis of party lists and they don’t know their own representative
      • Low stability: The Constitution makers felt that PR based elections may not be suitable for giving a stable government in a parliamentary system
  • Smooth functioning of government: The FPTP system generally gives the largest party or coalition some extra bonus seats which is more than their share of votes would allow. It allows the formation of a stable government
  • Working together: The FPTP system encourages voters from different social groups to come together to win an election in a locality. In a diverse country like India, a PR system would encourage each community to form its own nation-wide party

Experience of the FPTP system: 

The FPTP system has confirmed the expectation of the constitution makers. 

  • It has proved to be simple and familiar to ordinary voters
  • It has helped larger parties to win clear majorities at the centre and the State level
  • It has also discouraged political parties that get all their votes only from one caste or community 
  • Normally, the working of the FPTP system results in a two-party system 
  • The experience of FPTP in India is slightly different.
    • After independence: There emerged a one-party dominance
    • After 1989, India witnessed the functioning of the multi party coalitions
    • In many States, a two-party competition is emerging, but the distinguishing feature of India’s party system is that the rise of coalitions has made it possible for new and smaller parties to enter into electoral competition

Need of Reservation of Constituencies:

  • In the FPTP election system, the candidate who secures the highest votes in a particular constituency is declared elected. This often works to the disadvantage of the smaller social groups
  • India had a history of caste-based discrimination. In the FPTP electoral system, this means that the dominant social groups and castes can win everywhere, and the oppressed social groups may continue to remain unrepresented 

Reserved Constituencies:

  • In this system, all voters in a constituency are eligible to vote but the candidates must belong to only a particular community or social section for which the seat is reserved
  • To ensure proper representation: There are certain social groups which may be spread across the country and their numbers may not be sufficient to be able to influence a victory of a candidate in a constituency
  • Constitutional provisions:
    • It provides for reservation of seats in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
    • This provision was made initially for a period of 10 years and as a result of successive constitutional amendments, has been extended up to 2030 
    • The Parliament can take a decision to further extend it when the period of reservation expires
    • The number of seats reserved for both groups is in proportion to their share in the population of India
    • Of the 543 elected seats in the Lok Sabha, 84 are reserved for SC and 47 are reserved for ST (as on 26 January 2019)

Process to determine reserved constituencies: 

    • These constituencies are decided by an independent body called the Delimitation Commission which is appointed by the President of India and works in collaboration with the Election Commission of India 
    • Purpose: Drawing up the boundaries of constituencies all over the country
  • A quota of constituencies to be reserved in each State is fixed depending on the proportion of SC or ST in that State
    • After drawing the boundaries, the Delimitation Commission looks at the composition of population in each constituency
    • In case of ST: Constituencies with the highest proportion of ST population are reserved for ST
    • In case of SC: The Delimitation Commission looks at two things:
      • It picks constituencies that have a higher proportion of Scheduled Caste population
      • It also spreads these constituencies in different regions of the State because the Scheduled Caste population is generally spread evenly throughout the country
    • These reserved constituencies can be rotated each time the Delimitation exercise is undertaken
    • The Constitution does not make similar reservations for other disadvantaged groups

Conclusion

The simple majority method is often known as first-past-the-post (FPTP). The candidate with the most votes in a constituency is proclaimed the winner under this voting procedure. In India, this method is utilised for direct elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies. While FPTP is simple, it may not always provide a completely representative mandate since a candidate can win despite receiving fewer than half of the votes cast in a poll. In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance won 336 seats despite receiving just 38.5 percent of the popular vote. Furthermore, with FPTP, smaller parties representing specialised groups have a decreased probability of getting elected.