President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated an All India Seminar on “Economic Reforms With Reference to Electoral Issues” organised by the Confederation of the Indian Bar on April 8, 2017, in New Delhi.
Timely reforms are necessary which not only would give justice to the people but also to the ideals enshrined in the Constitution of India.
Hence it is necessary to undertake a dispassionate analysis of the way in which our electoral process is functioning with a view to address the shortcomings in the system.
Coalition politics was also discussed.
Constitution (Forty Second Amendment) Act 1976 imposed a freeze on the population figure for readjustment at the 1971 census and has been extended by the Constitution (Eighty-fourth Amendment) Act 2001 till 2026.
As a result the House of the People today represents the population figure of 1971 census whereas our population has increased manifold in the recent decades
This gives rise to an anomalous situation wherein today, India has over 800 million voters and 543 Lok Sabha Constituencies represent 1.28 billion people.
The seminar focused on electoral reforms in this context.
