It is doubtful if current electioneering in Nagaland will ever experience the much needed change where true elections would triumph over farcical elections that have been the hallmark of parliamentary democracy in the state. Clean election as it were, has been a subject of intense discussion in Nagaland particularly after the influential Nagaland Baptist Church Council(NBCC), after years of mulling over, finally decided to brave the challenge in 2012 to launch its \u2018clean election campaign\u2019. NBCC wanted to replicate the Mizoram experiment floated by the church where the influential Mizo People\u2019s Front (MPF) to effect clean election. True that elections in Nagaland among the most expensive in India that places a huge financial burden on candidates and also true also that election means indulging in electoral malpractices. Unethical and corrupt practices such as bogus voters list, proxy voting, booth capturing, intimidation of voters through display of deadly arsenal, use of armed miscreants to abduct agents and workers, bribes etc have plagued elections since the mid-70s are evident across the nation. Every citizen in a free democracy is obligated to vote without fear or favour. The effort did not succeed as the \u2018Clean Election Campaign\u2019 launched by the church, could not get their act together mainly due to lack of proper planning and time. To understand why Nagaland needs clean election; it would be appropriate to look into the entire issue of how elections in the state have become one among the most expensive in the country ; where booth capturing and proxy voting etc have become so rampant and so widely practised that these evils have unfortunately become necessary evils to win elections. Though money may not be used as blatantly in some places; but the very fact that some traditional or village authorities or organizations issue undemocratic diktats have hijacked the democratic process, does not make matters any better. The escalating costs of elections has brought worse than ruination of candidates; many of them, even the may have won an election, are still trying to repay back money borrowed. While the Nagaland Baptist Church Council(NBCC) is still trying to educate people on the need for clean elections, there are other issues that have a direct and crucial bearing on elections and the way they are conducted, held and their impact on society and the government. Democracy is the tool and power of the people to decide on their destiny and therefore voting is sacred and the very core of the fundamental right. Elections are conducted with blatant violation of the electoral code of conduct for an exercise that is one of the most expensive and unfair for various reasons. The other anti-democratic and criminal act is the practice of bogus voters and proxy voting. The little way out as a preventive means is to make it mandatory for voters to produce Electoral Photo Identity Card(EPIC) without which, no one can enter the polling station. If there is genuine desire to have clean election, the process should begin much ahead of scheduled election. The MPF clean election serves as a model but efforts should also include having it as subject taught in schools. It is more than enough time that NGOs in the state including church make a concerted effort to monitor electioneering in partnership with the Election Commission of India(ECI).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is doubtful if current electioneering in Nagaland will ever experience the much needed change where true elections would triumph over farcical elections that have been the hallmark of parliamentary democracy in the state. Clean election as it were, has been a subject of intense discussion in Nagaland particularly after the influential Nagaland Baptist Church […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-324934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}