‘Uncontested elections undermine principles of democracy’
The Constitution does not prohibit uncontested elections to either the panchayats or the Legislative Assemblies/Lok Sabha. At the same time, it takes contested elections at all levels as the norm and leaves it to the Election Commission to declare the winner of an election contested by only one candidate. There is no affirmation of the term “uncontested election”, for even the election of a candidate without contest has to be declared at the end of the election process.
Thus, the Constitution clearly regards contested elections as the norm and elections with only one candidate as a rare exception. There is certainly no provision in the Constitution relating to “promoting uncontested elections” by any government—state, Central or at panchayat levels. So, such practice may be regarded as not in accord with democratic practices that constitute the keystone of the constitutional order.
Rare uncontested elections resulting from consensus of the electorate is perhaps not banned by the Constitution, but there seems to be no provision that envisages state governments incentivising “uncontested elections” with financial favours. Thus, while uncontested elections may not undermine the letter of the Constitution, the same cannot be said if state governments financially incentivise uncontested elections and financially punish panchayats that do not discourage contestation. Thus, I would hold that promoting “uncontested elections by state governments” does, indeed, “undermine the principles of democracy”.
Gandhiji and JP [Jayaprakash Narayan] did indeed envision “consensus-driven governance” but envisaged this as a voluntary community-based process, and not through incentives by state governments. Thus, consensus driven by state governments’ financial incentives or disincentives cannot be said to align with the ideas of the Mahatma and/or JP.
The Constitution’s route to “fair representation” is through “contested elections” in a “competitive democracy”. As such, state governments that incentivise an artificial consensus by using the double-edged sword of financially incentivising panchayats that fall in line while financially punishing those that do not are, in fact, discouraging the operation of competitive democracy and, consequently, denying “fair representation” to the electorate.
In view of the points made above, it is clear that Gandhi and JP are far from the minds of the state governments concerned, whose “real intent” is to impose their will on the electorate through their preferred candidates by denying the electorate the democratic option of choosing by simple majority or the “first-past-the-post” method to ensure that elected candidates “fairly” represent the general preference of the electorate. Otherwise, the danger is ever-present of the party ruling the state using money- and muscle-power to bully village residents into acquiescing in an artificial consensus determined outside of a secret ballot box.
(Mani Shankar Aiyar was the first Union Minister for Panchayati Raj from 2004 to 2009)
This article is part of the cover story Forged consensus originally published in the August 16-31, 2025 print edition of Down To Earth