Unshackling the third tier

Indifference of voters to municipal corporation elections is an outcome of a serious governance flaw that needs to be fixed

A Business Standard analysis has shown that Delhi is not alone in recording a relatively low turnout of voters in municipal elections. Not just in the national capital, municipal corporations in many other Indian cities also see a lukewarm response from voters, compared to a higher turnout for the Assembly or general elections. Quite understandably, a low voter turnout in municipal elections should cause concern about electoral apathy in any democracy.

What triggered this concern early this month was the revelation that just about half the total number of eligible voters for electing 250 councillors for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had cast their ballots at the poll held on December 4. This was about 10 percentage points lower than the turnout in the last Delhi Assembly elections in 2020 and the general elections held a year earlier. In 2017, too, the voter turnout at the MCD elections was about 53 per cent, while over 67 per cent of voters had exercised their franchise in the Delhi Assembly elections held in 2015.

The voters’ turnout trend for municipal corporation elections in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai was equally depressing, ranging between 45 and 48 per cent. The only exception was Kolkata, where the last municipal elections saw a turnout of 67 per cent, which was even higher than the polling percentage recorded in the last West Bengal Assembly election.

What could be the reason for such a tepid electoral response to municipal elections? Could it be an indication of the voters’ indifference or is it caused by a lack of interest shown by political parties? Or is it because the governance structure in the country is such that neither the political parties nor the voters are sufficiently enthused to take part in the corporation elections?

Illustration: Binay Sinha

The trend in Kolkata looks like an outlier. The city of Kolkata has always been a little more politically conscious than other cities in the country. There is a long history of how Kolkata has been at the forefront of many popular movements led by political parties, securing the participation of a large number of people in that city. That the Kolkata Corporation’s elections would elicit a decent voter turnout is, therefore, not a big surprise.

The story of other cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai is a little different. The two southern cities in this analysis have also seen irregular elections. Even though the amendments to the Constitution in 1993 mandated elections every five years for all local bodies including the municipal corporations, Bengaluru and Chennai have not adhered to that requirement. This could be one of the reasons for the lack of enthusiasm among voters for taking part in these elections.

But there is possibly a bigger reason for the lukewarm response from voters and even political parties to municipal elections. This is about India’s governance structure that allows very little room for local governments like the municipal corporations. As a result, the third tier of governance (the first two being the Centre and the state governments) has grossly inadequate powers of raising resources to fulfil its basic responsibilities. Worse, most of these municipal corporations do not even show much interest in using their existing powers to tap into new sources of revenue to fund the schemes that they must run for the upkeep of the municipalities.

Two consequences follow. One, the performance of municipal corporations suffers hugely. They are often short of funds to even pay salaries to the staff at the many agencies and organisations they run to provide basic services to people like primary education, health and sanitation.

The second consequence is worse. These corporations become more dependent on financial allocations from the state governments. If the allocations dry up, the corporations fail to discharge their basic functions. And if the municipal corporation is ruled by a political party other than that running the state government, the financial consequences are serious.

Not surprisingly, such a pathetic situation has given rise to a different kind of politics of governance. Finance Commissions are now allocating resources to be directly transferred from the Centre to these municipal or local governments, much to the annoyance of the states — the second tier of governance. Even the Centre is allocating resources to the state governments subject to the latter transferring them to the municipal corporations or other types of local governments.

Indeed, political parties are fighting the municipal corporation elections on the strength of whether they have the ability to get more resources from either the state government or the Centre. For instance, during the campaign for the recently concluded MCD elections, the Aam Aadmi Party argued that voting it would help the state government (which it already controls) facilitate the functioning of the corporation. The Bharatiya Janata Party also talked about its strength derived from the Modi government at the Centre.

Unfortunately, the debate over municipal corporations has so far missed the most critical aspects that should ensure the delivery of improved governance by them. There is no discussion on how these corporations could be encouraged to expand their tax revenue base and make the collections of existing revenues more efficient and effective. A related issue is the management structure that is mandatorily followed by municipal corporations.

The stranglehold of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers on key positions responsible for running the municipal corporations may have many advantages in providing administrative continuity between the arms of different layers of the government. But more freedom to these corporations to hire their chief executive officers from the private sector would be a good idea to push them to think hard about exploring new sources of revenue and making them financially more independent. Once the municipal corporations start raising more resources on their own and begin delivering services to the people more efficiently, the current indifference of voters should go away. That would also be a shot in the arm for India’s considerably weakened third tier of governance.