India needs a credible referendum platform

The MPs in Hyderabad are now clamoring to get Hyderabad to be granted a Union Territory status in the Indian Union. They are gathering political votes to push this idea through urging the central government to accede to the wishes of the people.

This is where it gets sticky. Wishes of the people? how do they make that one up? Did they go to all parts of Hyderabad and ask every one of its citizens if thats what they want?

Obviously not, politicians being politicians are pushing their personal agenda in the name of people's wishes.

If the government wishes to truly take key decisions based on the wishes of Indians, we need to seriously consider building a reusable and foolproof referendum platform that helps governments to quickly gather public opinion on all matters of the state.

Now, having said that, I must admit that building a referendum platform in a mostly illiterate country like India is nothing short of impossible, fraught with challenges on making it fool proof and accessible to all citizenry of this vast country and most importantly to make it cheap!

I have come to believe that the best way this can be implemented with least margin of error is by taking a combination of votes from the general population and the political bosses of this country.

For instance

lets simply consider the people of India and the bosses to be a part of any decision making board that is seeking the referendum with a 49:51 split with government being the 51% stakeholder.

75% vote is required to pass a judgement failing which the government pushes for prime minister's veto card.

How will the people of India vote? Send an SMS to 8989 + password + with a YES or NO!

or something like that. I know this is not the best or fool proof way of executing things. But this should work. We can ensure that all voters register first by providing their IDs such as Passport Number or PAN number or EPF number or other such numbers and a telephone.

This will ensure we can tie-in the telephone number with the voter and provide the citizen with a password.

The central db will register PAN#+Tel#+IMEI# as the unique citizen referendum account. This will even allow same cell phone to be used for multiple individuals should the cell phone be shared.

This is not only cheap, but can reach even the remotest of villages since cell phones have become the most pervasive of technologies since sliced bread!

This system is not without its flaws, it can be secured with little effort by the telecom companies but will provide and stringent measures would have to be taken to prevent any SMS frauds and other such activities by fraudsters.

But, imagine the power that will be bestowed with the citizens of this country should we build such a platform!

The whole nation would become truly self governed! and Bharathi's dream would have been fulfilled

"Ellorum innaattu mannar..." everyone is king in this holy land!