What if our representative doesn’t work properly, as per our needs should we have the only option to wait till his total tenure of five years?

Why don’t we have the power to kick him out of his chair?

Why don’t we have any checks and balances for our representatives for his dissatisfaction, once they come into power for 5 years?

The answer to the above questions forms our today's discussion.

If people have the right to elect their representatives, they should also have the right to dismiss them upon their failure in fulfilling their promises. 

This is where the urge to implement Right to Recall comes into action. As it was seen in the Vedic times the concept of “Raj Dharma”, The King will be removed when there is a lack of satisfaction from his governance. 

What were the efforts made to implement RTR

The Constitution amendment Bill about votes the Right to Recall was introduced in the Lok Sabha by CK Chandrappa in 1974 and this was supported by the former PM Vajpayee but somehow this has not got implemented and it was opposed by the election commission of India.

MN Roy and Jayprakash Narayan were tried extensively on the need to introduce RTR In our electoral system of India.

In 2016 Varun Gandhi introduced the “Representation of People Bill” in Lok Sabha to recall their MPs and MLAs for their lack of non-performance. However, this too had not worked.

Even the law commission of India in its 255th report after scrutinising said it was not in favour of elections because elections are tedious and hectic processes. It involves millions of people and resources which worth’s crores of money to conduct elections. Hence it was not feasible to hold the election for the same constituency frequently.

Right to recall in the present scenario,

Uganda the Constitution itself provides the right to recall to its citizens for their fair form of democracy.

Efforts have been made so far to get implemented the Right to Recall in the US as well as in Canada. The system exists in-state levels of Switzerland and Venezuela.

The concept of recall has been implemented in some of the states at Panchayat level viz Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh. But, it hasn’t given good results.

Advantages of RTR

The Right to Recall will have continuous accountability of representatives. So that voters need not wait till the next elections to get rid of them for their dissatisfaction.

A means of honesty set back in politics.

It will deter candidates from spending crores of money in campaigning for the elections because if we do so then they will have a perpetual fear of being recalled.

It checks and balances corruption and criminalisation in the political arena.

It will deepen the roots of democracy, Via it must be given hand-in-hand with the right to vote.

The voters have the right to have free and fair elections in the same way they have the right to elect their representative they should also have the right to remove them.

Disadvantages of RTR

It was argued that introducing the Right to Recall would unnecessarily undermine the role and importance of our present; it is during many weekends our art of democracy.

It may be miss-use by some of the opposition parties by spending huge money just to please their voters.

As the Election Commission Of India stated that elections require huge manpower and infrastructure. So it is not possible to conduct frequent and regular elections in a huge country like India. Which makes democracy chaotic.

If he does so then the representatives may not get proper time to plan for policies and schemes for the people. Which needs a long time to scrutinise them.

Final thought

Some advocates feel that this is just a mixture of fact and fantasy which doesn’t have any kind of reality.

 Every coin has two facets, Considering the pros and cons of the Right to Recall. The government should come with some additional stringent norms to implement RTR in the present scenario. Let's hope this weapon indeed may get implemented soon. 

At last as a layman, what do you feel about the Right to Recall necessary. Let me know in the comments.