To
Sri AVS Reddy
Commissioner
State Election Commission (SEC) of Andhra Pradesh
III Floor, Buddha Bhavan, MG Road
Secunderabad - 500 003

Sub: Open Primary Elections in Lok Satta Party - Request for Facilitation - Reg.

Dear Sri AVS Reddy garu,

As you are aware, Lok Satta Party is registered as a political party, under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act 1951, with the Election Commission of India (vide Order No. 56/152/2006/J.S.III/320 dated 22nd December, 2006). It is also registered with the AP State Election Commission, under The Registration of Political Parties and Allotment of Symbols Order, 2001 (vide Order No. 2411/SEC-L/2006, dated 26th December, 2006).

Lok Satta Party already has extremely wide name recognition all over Andhra Pradesh, and is known to the more enlightened sections across the country. More than 250,000 citizens have become its members over the past seven months. By the end of the year, the membership will cross 500,000. It has chapters in every district of Andhra Pradesh, and in over half of the mandals and more than 90% municipal towns. People, in large numbers, associate our ideas, agenda, articulation and structure and functioning with their own aspirations. Over the next few months, we expect to have over 1000 chapters in Andhra Pradesh. Objective assessments indicate that Lok Satta Party is known to 60% of the people of Andhra Pradesh, and a significant proportion of them are willing to vote for Lok Satta Party and its mission to create a new political culture.

Our party is committed to genuinely democratic functioning in all facets. In particular, Lok Satta's electoral candidates are chosen through open primary elections by secret ballot. These primary elections are open to all registered voters and follow the single transferable - preferential vote system. This would result in the opening up of the nomination process to millions of citizens and would only strengthen our democracy. Open primary elections of Lok Satta Party would, arguably, prove to be a historic landmark in the evolution of Indian political democracy. Once a political party with a significant popular base demonstrates a new and democratic way of choosing candidates through people's will, and running the party ethically and democratically, it will generate great public pressure on the established political parties to reform. Therefore, we believe such a demonstration effect is vital for the health of our democracy and needs to be nurtured by all institutions and authorities which wish to strengthen democracy.

In countries like the United States, such primary elections are actually conducted by the state at public expenditure. In India, there is no legal framework to formally involve the State Election Commission in the conduct of primary elections. Therefore, the SEC cannot assume such a responsibility. However, the SEC and the state machinery can facilitate the process without incurring any financial cost and without any deployment of manpower.

In this regard, we request the SEC to facilitate the conduct of Lok Satta Party's open primaries for elections local governments by:

• Providing to our Party, the electronic and print copies of the latest version of Electoral Rolls employed by the SEC during elections, towards enabling all registered voters to participate in our primary election process.
• Permitting the use of premises that are ordinarily used by the State Election Commission to conduct elections (i.e. buildings designated as polling booths) to local governments, for holding our party's open primary elections. We intend to conduct our primary elections in these premises only during public holidays and that too in a manner that would not obstruct the routine activities of the public.
• Ensuring that the constituency boundaries and reservations are finalized immediately in Greater Hyderabad and Tirupati, and at least a month's time is available between notification of reservations and election notification to facilitate democratic choice of candidates through primary elections.

We aim to hold these open primary elections in all divisions of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GMCH), Tirupati Municipal Corporation and in all wards, MPTCs and ZPTCs of those local governments where elections are due, depending on the actual date of the elections to these local governments.

We request you to give the necessary directions to the concerned authorities so that citizens can participate in a truly historic process of democratic choice of electoral candidates. Indeed, such facilitation could be extended to all political parties that choose to select their electoral candidates through a similar, genuinely democratic process.

Our Party itself would bear the expenses of conducting these primary elections, until an appropriate law is made providing for mandatory and state-funded primary elections through secret ballot in all political parties.

Lok Satta Party will shortly be setting up an Independent Ombudsman Mechanism that will oversee the conduct of these primary elections and ensure their fairness. In addition, we would be glad to welcome any election observer(s) the State Election Commission may choose to deploy to monitor the process, or merely to study the way internal democratic mechanisms can be institutionalized in Indian political parties.

Yours sincerely,

Jayaprakash Narayan
National Coordinator

Copy to:
The Secretary, SEC