Electoral Finance in India : An Analysis of Laws and Judicial Pronouncements.

Abstract

For a democracy to sustain itself, free and fair elections is a must. In this pursuit Election Commission of India has ensured that elections are conducted with no undue influence over voters by political parties or candidates, by keeping the contests in check. Lately, there has been a huge influx of money into electoral politics which has been shaping results in the favour of the party or candidate spending in the highest. It has also impacted policy making because the donor creates an obligation on the electoral representative to act on his/her behalf. To ensure that democracy is not tilted in favour of a few, it is necessary to ensure that workable electoral reforms are drafted regularly to keep a tight rein on candidates who wish to govern the State. The current electoral reforms are reactionary in nature, and they come up only to address an issue either raised by the Court or Election Commission or civil societies. There has been very few reforms that are planned to sustain for a longer duration because there is no single document that encompasses election laws. Therefore, this thesis attempts to analyse the problems inherent with the current reforms by historically analysing all major reforms either suggested or enacted, along with the analysis of judicial pronouncements to conclude on nature of problem at hand with a possible solution for the same.