Right to recall in elections

Right to recall in elections means removal of the elected representative from his post by the voter
himself/herself before the expiry of the term of the representative. Recall confers on the electorate the
power to actually de-elect their representative from their position through a direct vote initiated when
a minimum number of voters sign a petition to recall. Several European countries have implemented
this right with very great effect. This is not a new concept for the Indian society also, in Vedic times
the concept of “Rajdharma” was followed wherein the lack of effective governance led to removal of
king, after that Sachin Sanyal ,in 1924, was first who talks about the right to removal of public
servants from his/her post, in his manifesto he wrote that “In this Republic the electors shall have the
right to recall their representatives, if so desired, otherwise the democracy shall become a mockery” .
In continue with this, in 1944, MN Roy proposed the decentralization and devolution of governance
which will allow for the election and recall of representative. After that, The Representation of
Peoples Act (RPA) 1951 talks about Right to Recall. RPA does not account the ground of
incompetence or the dissatisfaction of the electorate as the ground for recall and vacation. It only
provides for the vacation of the office upon the commission of the certain offence. Constitution
(Amendment) Bill about Voters' right to recall elected representatives was introduced in Lok Sabha
by C. K. Chandrappan in 1974 and Atal Bihari Vajpayee supported this but the bill didn’t pass. This
Right has been opposed by Election Commission and highlighted in Indian politics. In 2016, Varun
Gandhi introduced ‘The Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill in Lok Sabha to recall MPs,
MLAs for the non-performance which is not passed.
However, India doesn’t have such provision to recall except in certain states like Uttar Pradesh,
Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh,
where people have the right to recall the public servant having post of Sarpanch, Mukhiya, Corporator
and Mayor. In spite of villagers in these states having direct power to remove their Sarpanch, the
corruption done by Sarpanch of these states is high and widespread due to lack of awareness of the
right.
Granting of Right to Recall is a balanced option, it is safer and would not lead to constant political
upheaval. Parties would be forced to give a ticket to a candidate with clean and good past record and
by this representatives can actually be expected to keep up their performance for next five years.
Legislative change is required to bring about right to recall, built-in safeguards should be there.
However, the right to recall should not be misused to harass the elected representatives. The electronic
voting procedure should be used. It should be ensured that the representatives cannot be recalled by a
small margin of voters there must be ¼ of the total voters who elected the representative, it should
represent the mandate of the people. There can be certain disadvantage of this right like,the
representative would be under constant pressure to work the way people want him, political rivals
would make an issue out of smallest of the mistake of the representative and demand a recall election,
the criteria provided for recall i.e. the dissatisfaction of the electorate with the performance of the
candidate, is vague and provides immense scope for misuse. Moreover, any elected person when
found to be engaged in the corrupt practice or any misdeed can be removed from his position.
“There can be no doubt, that if power is granted to a body of men, called Representatives, they like
any other men will use their power not for the advantage of the community but for their own
advantage, if they can.” – James Mill