If President APJ Abdul Kalam has his way, rejecting an election candidate with criminal antecedents will only be a click away.
Picture this: Minutes after a candidate files his nomination papers, his legal records from the courts, credit history from the banks and civic consciousness and behaviour as a citizen from the police records will arrive at the returning officer's computer terminal through a network grid connecting various agencies of the government.
Under Dr Kalam's vision for e-governance, artificial intelligence software will even rate how successful the candidate will be as a politician!
"An election officer sitting in a remote part of the country decides on the spot and the election process starts," says Dr Kalam who presented a typical election scenario possible in the future during a talk on 'Connectivity for Empowering the Nation' organised by Indian Express newspaper on Tuesday.
The President's dream does not end here. Trudging a long path to the polling booth is also not necessary, he says.
Voters can exercise their franchise sitting in their homes through virtual polling booths.
To realise Dr Kalam's dream, a national citizen identification database has to be created first, something which political parties are against for fear of communal profiling and misuse.
Another is creating a grid where district administration, universities, employers, income tax department, land record authorities, banks, police and courts are wired to give out real-time information.
"There will be no bias in this election process," says Dr Kalam.
