Report by a correspondent of the Mazdoor Ekta Committee
On 11 October, Mazdoor Ekta Committee organized a public meeting on the topic: “How can the election process be brought under people’s control?”
A Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists is currently underway throughout the country. During this revision, the names of millions of people are being removed from the electoral rolls, depriving them of their right to vote. Protests against this are taking place nationwide. The meeting was organized in this context.
Addressing the gathering, Comrade Birju Nayak stated that merely removing the current Chief Election Commissioner, or including the Chief Justice in the selection process for Election Commissioners, would not resolve the fundamental problems plaguing the existing political system and the electoral process. Such measures would fail to address the lack of a ‘level playing field’ between the parties and candidates representing the capitalist class, and those representing workers and peasants.
What is needed today is a fundamental transformation that brings the entire political system, including the Election Commission as well as the broader political process, under the control of the people.
We currently live under a capitalist democracy, a system in which capitalists control all institutions of power. We must struggle to replace this capitalist democracy with a democracy of the toilers — a system in which the power to make decisions rests in the hands of workers and farmers.
The meeting was concluded by Santosh Kumar.