Cm chavan wants open voting in council elections

He has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to initiate the process of making voting in the state council open, along the lines of the Rajya Sabha. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has turned

his focus to electoral reforms in Maharashtra. He has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to initiate the process of making voting in the state council open, along the lines of the Rajya

Sabha. “The secret ballot often paves the way for horse trading. Like in the Rajya Sabha, I firmly believe that state council elections should be through an open ballot,” he said. Chavan

also wants to take up electoral reforms issue with other parties in the state. With just six states in the country that has a state council, nobody has given much thought to the secret

ballot method of voting. Initially, voting in Rajya Sabha was done through a secret ballot as well, but reports of rampant horse trading among political parties at the Centre brought about

reforms. In the recently held council elections, the CM decided to field just three candidates for the Congress instead of four to avoid horse trading. All political parties admit that

voting through a secret ballot leads to a lot of money exchanging hands during council elections. They say, “Once we have an open voting system, individuals will make conscious decisions

which will not be determined by how much money is paid.” People are often willing to shell out Rs50 lakh to Rs1 crore for just one vote. As a result, parties have often had to shortlist the

candidate with the financial merit to ensure s/he was able to make the payments.