Should India also follow the US system of holding election for Parliament preferably in winter months to achieve higher percentage of voting and reducing the expenditure considerably on the general elections after every five year.
Though the Supreme Court refused to go into the issue when a PIL was moved before it by an NGO, Save Aam Admi, but its research paper placed before the court made an interesting reading.
The NGO has analysed the election expenditure and voting percentage by compartmentalising them in two phases — 1952 to 1991 and 1991-2004 — and came out with the conclusion that while expenses on holding election during winter was much less as compared to summer and voting percentage during the cool days was much higher.
A bench, headed by Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia declined to entertain the PIL saying that the issue was outside the domain of the judiciary, but if the NGO has any credible data, it could place the same before the executive authorities and the Election Commission, which have the jurisdiction to deal with the matter.
The NGO’s papers claimed that the average gross election cost during summer was higher by `681 crores or 23 per cent as compared to the polling held during winter. If comparison was made only between two elections held in summer, each time there was an increase of nearly `118 crores in the cost over the previous election.
On the other hand, the average voting during winter was higher by about 4 per cent as compared to summer. The winter election maintained the higher voting percentage of about 2 per cent even when polling was held in the war shadow, the NGO said.