In today's world of Information & Communications Technology and hundreds of News Channels, the Indian electorate is ill-served by our obsolete election processes. It is easy to fix this problem and improve the quality of leaders who get elected with a little help from The Election Commission of India.

Article 324 in The Constitution Of India 1949 empowers the EC:

324. Superintendence, direction and control of elections to be vested in an Election Commission

(1) The superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of the electoral rolls for, and the conduct of, all elections to Parliament and to the Legislature of every State and of elections to the offices of President and Vice President held under this Constitution shall be vested in a Commission (referred to in this Constitution as the Election Commission).

So, EC is responsible for "conduct of all elections". Why should it not arrange for a platform for the candidates to a) publish their statement of objectives, b) air their views and even debate with other contenders on regional or national TV, depending upon their being “star campaigners”?

The EC should suggest a slate of moderators for the debate and the contestants can mutually select one or two for each debate. There should be an opportunity for at least one debate for each constituency’s contestants in regional TV channels and at least three debates for star campaigners in National TV channels. The debates should be arranged one week after the last date of publishing statement of objectives by the candidates. Only those candidates should be invited for debate who have published their statements of objectives, filed all statutory affidavits to the EC with required disclosures. If there are more than “x” number of contestants, the moderators may be allowed to conduct preliminary elimination rounds of popularity in town hall meetings, just in case buying time on TV channels becomes too expensive. Chances are that TV channels will offer free time to EC for this exercise for reasons of public interest and building TRP ratings.

Please sign this petition if you believe it will serve to bring better quality of leaders to the fore.