Abstract:
For a democracy to sustain itself, free and fair elections is a must. In this pursuit
Election Commission of India has ensured that elections are conducted with no undue
influence over voters by political parties or candidates, by keeping the contests in check.
Lately, there has been a huge influx of money into electoral politics which has been
shaping results in the favour of the party or candidate spending in the highest. It has
also impacted policy making because the donor creates an obligation on the electoral
representative to act on his/her behalf. To ensure that democracy is not tilted in favour
of a few, it is necessary to ensure that workable electoral reforms are drafted regularly
to keep a tight rein on candidates who wish to govern the State. The current electoral
reforms are reactionary in nature, and they come up only to address an issue either
raised by the Court or Election Commission or civil societies. There has been very few
reforms that are planned to sustain for a longer duration because there is no single
document that encompasses election laws. Therefore, this thesis attempts to analyse the
problems inherent with the current reforms by historically analysing all major reforms
either suggested or enacted, along with the analysis of judicial pronouncements to
conclude on nature of problem at hand with a possible solution for the same.
