By IANS
New Delhi : There should be a system of proportionate representation in the Indian parliament and legislatures to prevent the current phase of coalition politics from degenerating into “anarchy”, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Sitaram Yechury has suggested.
Yechury was debating Friday on the future of coalition politics in India with senior Congress leader and Union Urban Development Minister S. Jaipal Reddy and Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary Arun Jaitley.
The occasion was the release of the revised version of a book on the subject titled “Divided We Stand”, penned jointly by two well-known journalists, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Shankar Raghuraman.
Yechury, a member of the CPI-M politbureau, welcomed the era of coalition insofar as it provided greater representation to more people. But he apprehended what he described as the pressure from smaller groups of “one, one, two, two MPs in Parliament”, which he said could lead to “anarchy” at a future date.
He prescribed “a good mix of proportionate representation with the current system of democratic representation to save democracy” in India.
The CPI-M leader also warned of successive governments facing anti-incumbency for their attempt to work for the forces of liberalization. “What is the outcome,” said Yechury, adding, “Suffering India throws out the campaigners of Shining India.”
Jaipal Reddy said, “I prefer ideology politics to identity politics. But if I have to choose identity politics then I would rather go for caste identity than religious identity, because caste identity provides representation to sections who have so far been denied this. It is also does not generate violence. Whereas politics of religious identity (referring to the BJP) unleashes violence throughout the nation which is very difficult to control.”
He said he was pleased that the religious minorities who had stopped backing the Congress in the 1990s, have returned to the party. “Congress has again won the affection and confidence of religious minorities,” said Reddy implying that now the Congress had nothing to worry.
Jaitley said there was a rise in regional forces and smaller parties even as the Congress graph was likely to down steadily. “The problem is with dynasty politics. First dynasty may be able to gather crowds but cannot generate enough votes to keep the Congress in power, and the leaders of consequence seeing no prospect of rising to the top would always tend to go over and join some Mayawati or Mulayam Singh Yadav.”
He also pointed that there are as many as 291 different seats in the Lok Sabha that the BJP has represented at one time or the other since the 1989 general elections. “This shows the pan India presence of the BJP,” said the BJP leader.