Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Chapter of the Campaign for Electoral Reforms in India (CERI) organised a meeting at PanthaNivas, Bhubaneswar here, meeting stressed on introduction of proportional representation electoral system in the country by replacing the present First Past the Post (FPTP) system.
The state coordinator of CERI Manas Jena representative of political parties, academics, Social activist and social movements, media representatives and concern citizens of the state met here at Panthanivas, Bhubaneswar on 31st August 2018 on the eve of Odisha state conference on PR electoral system for India by Campaign for electoral reforms in India (CERI) Odisha state chapter,and have unanimously adopted the following resolutions.
The state coordinator of CERI Manas Jena said, we are deeply concerned for the democracy of the country and agreed that the Electoral systems are most important to ensure democratic form of Government but the present First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system being practised in India has not represented equal value for each vote.
The FPTP allows political parties to come to power both in the State and Centre with less percentage of votes. The percentage of votes that a party gets is not the same as the percentage of seats it gets in this electoral system. This is not democracy as the system does not give a true representation of the voters. It excludes the losing voters from participating in Governance votes are not proportionate to seats. Most voters of our country are unaware about other electoral systems in practice around the world.
Manas added as alternative, CERI demand reform in electoral system by adopting Proportional Representation electoral system for India to ensure democracy through representation in seats/Governance based on percentage of votes. We propose mixed member PR system with 70% of candidate from PR and 30% from FPTP electoral system.
In order to take forward the demand of PR ahead in the state of Odisha, the conference decided to form a state committee with representation of all concern specially political parties supporting it and wish to undertake activities that beneficial in achieving the above resolutions.
JyothiRaj, Co-Founder CERI. Panchanan Kanungo, Ex-Finance Minister. Nisikanta Mohapatra, State Coordinator , AAP, representative of political parties, academics, Social activist and social movements, media representatives and concern citizens of the state met here at Panthanivas, Bhubaneswar on the eve of Odisha state conference on PR electoral system for India by Campaign for electoral reforms in India (CERI) Odisha state chapter.
Nidhi Sinha, OP