Class 11 Political Science Chapter 3 Election and Representation Important Questions with Answers in English

प्र. What is the First Past the Post (FPTP) system?

उत्तर: The system in which the country is divided into constituencies, each electing one representative, and the candidate with the most votes in that constituency is declared elected, without needing a majority.

प्र. What is Proportional Representation (PR)?

उत्तर: A system in which every party gets the same percentage of seats in the legislature as its percentage of the vote. Voters vote for a party, not a candidate.

प्र. What was a separate electorate?

उत्तर: A system in which only voters belonging to a particular community could elect that community’s representative. The Constituent Assembly rejected it.

प्र. What does the Delimitation Commission do?

उत्तर: It is an independent body, appointed by the President, that draws the boundaries of constituencies across the country and decides which constituencies will be reserved, and for which community.

प्र. What is universal adult franchise?

उत्तर: It means that every adult citizen of a country has the right to vote, regardless of education, property, caste or gender.

प्र. What does Article 324 provide for?

उत्तर: Article 324 vests the superintendence, direction and control of electoral rolls and all elections to Parliament, State legislatures, and the President-Vice President’s offices in the Election Commission.

प्र. In which year was the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam passed, and what does it do?

उत्तर: It was passed in 2023 and provides for the reservation of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies.

प्र. What is the tenure of the Chief Election Commissioner?

उत्तर: The CEC’s tenure is six years, or until the age of 65, whichever is earlier.

प्र. Using the 1984 Lok Sabha election, explain how the ratio of votes to seats can become skewed under FPTP.

उत्तर: In 1984, Congress got only 48 percent of the total votes, yet it won 415 of 543 seats, more than 80 percent. The BJP, by contrast, got 7.4 percent of the votes but only 2 seats. This happens because under FPTP, whoever gets the most votes in each constituency wins that seat, and the votes of all losing candidates are simply wasted.

प्र. How is the winning quota worked out for a Rajya Sabha election? Give an example.

उत्तर: Quota = (Total votes polled / (Total seats to be elected + 1)) + 1. For example, if 200 MLAs are to elect 4 Rajya Sabha members, the quota = (200/5) + 1 = 41 votes.

प्र. What is the difference between a separate electorate and a reserved constituency?

उत्तर: In a separate electorate, only voters of a particular community elected that community’s representative, so the electorate itself was divided by community. In a reserved constituency, all voters of that constituency can vote, but only a candidate belonging to the reserved community can stand.

प्र. Why does the Delimitation Commission use a different approach for ST seats compared to SC seats?

उत्तर: ST seats are reserved in constituencies with the highest ST population. SC population, however, is generally spread evenly across a State, so SC-reserved seats are chosen from higher-SC-population constituencies but also spread across different regions of the State.

प्र. How did the Election Commission become a permanently multi-member body?

उत्तर: Two additional Election Commissioners were first appointed just before the 1989 general elections, but the Commission reverted to a single member after that election. Two Commissioners were appointed again in 1993, and the Commission has been permanently multi-member since then.

प्र. How is the process of removing the Chief Election Commissioner different from removing other Election Commissioners?

उत्तर: Removing the CEC requires both Houses of Parliament to recommend it with a special majority, exactly as in the impeachment of the President. The other Election Commissioners, however, can simply be removed by the President.

प्र. What are the two conditions attached to the right to contest an election?

उत्तर: 1. A candidate contesting a Lok Sabha or Assembly election must be at least 25 years old.
2. A person sentenced to two years or more of imprisonment for an offence is disqualified from contesting.

प्र. Give two distinctive features of Israel’s election system.

उत्तर: 1. The whole country is treated as a single constituency, and elections to the Knesset are held every four years.
2. A party needs a minimum of 3.25 percent of the vote to win any seats, which lets even small parties gain representation and often leads to coalition governments.

प्र. Explain four differences between FPTP and PR.

उत्तर: 1. Constituency: FPTP uses small geographical constituencies, PR can use large areas or the whole country as one unit.
2. Vote: In FPTP a voter votes for a candidate, in PR for a party.
3. Seats versus votes: In FPTP a party can win more seats than its vote share, in PR every party gets seats proportional to its votes.
4. Majority: In FPTP the winner need not have a majority, in PR the winner has a majority of votes.

प्र. Why did India adopt the FPTP system? Give four reasons.

उत्तर: 1. Simplicity: FPTP is easy for ordinary voters to understand.
2. Clear choice: voters can choose based on either the party or the candidate.
3. Accountability: each constituency has just one representative, who can be held personally accountable, something PR makes harder.
4. Stable government: a parliamentary system needs a clear majority, which PR can make difficult; in a diverse country like India, PR might also have encouraged every community to form its own separate party.

प्र. Why was the system of reserved constituencies considered necessary? Give the SC-ST reservation figures too.

उत्तर: 1. Under FPTP, socially dominant groups can win almost everywhere, leaving disadvantaged groups unrepresented.
2. India’s long history of caste-based discrimination makes this problem more serious.
3. The Constitution therefore reserves seats for SC and ST in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies, originally for 10 years, now extended up to 2030.
4. Today, 84 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats are reserved for SC and 47 for ST.

प्र. Explain four major functions of the Election Commission.

उत्तर: 1. Electoral rolls: preparing and keeping the voters’ list accurate and up to date.
2. Election schedule: deciding the dates for notification, nomination, withdrawal, polling and counting.
3. Protecting fairness: postponing or cancelling elections, ordering a re-poll or recount, and enforcing the Model Code of Conduct.
4. Recognising parties: giving recognition to political parties and allotting election symbols.

प्र. Why do questions arise about the Election Commission’s independence, and what has been suggested to strengthen it?

उत्तर: 1. The CEC and Election Commissioners are appointed by the President on the advice of the Council of Ministers, so a ruling party could in principle appoint someone favourable to it.
2. To address this, it has been suggested that consultation with the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India be made mandatory for such appointments.
3. Even so, the Constitution protects the CEC’s independence by requiring a special majority to remove them, which is not easy for a ruling party to achieve.
4. Over the last 25 years the Commission has become more assertive, not because its powers grew, but because it has used its existing powers more effectively.

प्र. List four suggestions that have been made for electoral reform.

उत्तर: 1. Moving away from FPTP toward some form of Proportional Representation.
2. Reserving at least one-third of seats in Parliament and Assemblies for women.
3. Stricter control on the role of money in elections, with election expenses paid from a special government fund.
4. Barring candidates with pending criminal cases from contesting, even while an appeal is pending; a complete ban on caste and religious appeals in campaigning.

प्र. The Election Commission has faced two particularly difficult situations. What were they, and how did the Commission respond?

उत्तर: 1. In 1991, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated during campaigning, forcing the election process to be postponed mid-way.
2. In 2002, after the Gujarat Assembly was dissolved, widespread violence made it impossible to hold a free and fair election immediately, so the Commission postponed the elections by a few months.
3. The Supreme Court upheld the Commission’s decision in the Gujarat case, showing that the Commission both has the power to postpone elections for fairness and the willingness to use it.

प्र. Explain how the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system works in Rajya Sabha elections, with a worked example.

उत्तर: 1. STV is a variant of Proportional Representation used to elect Rajya Sabha members.
2. Each State has a fixed quota of Rajya Sabha seats, and the MLAs of that State are the voters.
3. Every MLA ranks the candidates in order of preference.
4. The quota of votes needed to win is given by the formula: Quota = (Total votes / (seats + 1)) + 1. For example, if 200 MLAs are to elect 4 members, the quota = (200/5)+1 = 41 votes.
5. First preference votes are counted first; any candidate reaching the quota is declared elected.
6. If enough candidates have not reached the quota, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes transferred to the second preference marked on those ballots. This repeats until enough candidates are elected.
7. India uses this more complex system only for limited cases like the Rajya Sabha, since running it for the whole country, especially one as large as India, would be far more difficult.

प्र. What was a separate electorate, why did the Constituent Assembly reject it, and what did it adopt instead?

उत्तर: 1. Before independence, the British government introduced separate electorates, under which only voters of a particular community could elect that community’s representative.
2. This was sharply opposed in the Constituent Assembly. Tajamul Husain said separate electorates had been a curse to India and had done incalculable harm.
3. The fear was that this would keep communities isolated from the national mainstream rather than helping them integrate into it.
4. Instead, the Assembly adopted reserved constituencies, where all voters of a constituency vote, but the candidate must belong to the community for which the seat is reserved.
5. Jaipal Singh supported this system on behalf of Adivasis, pointing out that under the 1935 Act there were only 24 Adivasi MLAs out of 1585, and none at the Centre.
6. This same thinking underlies today’s reservation of 84 SC and 47 ST seats in the Lok Sabha, with the Delimitation Commission deciding which seats are reserved.

प्र. On what grounds can India’s election system be judged a success? Explain in five points.

उत्तर: 1. Voters have been able to freely choose their representatives and to change governments peacefully, at both the State and national level.
2. Voters have consistently taken keen interest in the process, with the number of candidates and parties contesting steadily rising.
3. The system has proved inclusive, the social background of representatives has gradually changed, though the number of women legislators has still not risen satisfactorily.
4. In most parts of the country, election outcomes are not directly affected by rigging, even though attempts at it do occur.
5. Elections have become part of our democratic life, no government can imagine ignoring an election’s verdict. For all these reasons, both voters’ confidence and the standing of the Election Commission have grown.

प्र. Explain the independence and powers of the Election Commission in detail, with examples.

उत्तर: 1. Article 324 gives the Election Commission responsibility for the superintendence, direction and control of elections, an interpretation the Supreme Court has upheld.
2. The Commission has been permanently multi-member since 1993, and all decisions are taken collectively so that no single person holds too much power.
3. The CEC and Commissioners have secure tenure of six years or 65 years of age, and removing the CEC needs a special majority, which is not easy for a ruling party to achieve.
4. The Commission has wide powers, preparing electoral rolls, deciding the election schedule, enforcing the Model Code of Conduct, and postponing or cancelling elections.
5. Examples: postponing the election process in 1991 after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, and postponing Gujarat’s elections in 2002 due to violence, both show the Commission taking tough decisions for fair elections.
6. Even so, questions remain about the appointment process, since it happens on the advice of the Council of Ministers, which is why consultation with the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice has been suggested.