People or chunks of map?

In a local body election, the candidate must be from the locality under the jurisdiction of the body.  It also stands to reason to have multiple representatives from small portions of area under jurisdiction.  It helps people in each smaller area to hold the Councillors responsible for specific problems of that area.

However there is little reason for replicating the same logic in elections to state assemblies and the parliament.  It is NOT the job of MLAs and MPs to look after the basic amenities in a particular area.  Then why must we map each member to a small chunk of the map of the state or the country?  Each area does get represented through its residents who exercise their franchise.

It is because of this mistaken notion of representation of chunks of map rather than people that even well meaning parties are forced into fielding people with dubious reputation in each area.  The simple reason being that they feel that he can garner the votes somehow or the other.  And it is for this reason that all parties stand solidly together when it comes to enacting a law to prevent such people from contesting elections.

All this can be easily avoided.  The parties can be rid of all criminals, entry barriers in politics substantially lowered, confusing local issues for state level and country level issues prevented, and most in-person campaigning done away with.  Here are my suggestions for the purpose.

• Let the state be one constituency in case of assembly elections and the country one constituency in case of elections to the parliament.  However total number of people that will man the legislature can be kept at a reasonable number to encourage and facilitate debates.  It should be neither too large nor too small.
• It follows that there will be no individual contestants.  Parties will be contestants.  Each party declares what performance it promises against each subject entrusted to it by the constitution.  Established parties also mention what they did in the government or the opposition for fulfilling their promised commitments last time.
• The total number of seats in the legislature are allotted to parties on the basis of the percentage of votes received by them.  
• In view of the deep fragmentation in the Indian polity, we may also consider not allotting any seats to parties getting less than 5% of the popular vote.  These left-out seats may be divided amongst the remaining parties in the ratio of votes garnered by them.  In fact the process can be repeated by further raising the limit for eliminations till one party comes out with 50% share.  This will avoid any need for re-election and, hopefully, teach the voters not to get too fragmented.  Also such eliminated parties could be stopped from contesting the next election too.

The parties should then be free to choose the requisite number of legislators either from their cadre or from qualified management professionals or a combination of both.  There must be a rigorous background check for such people by CVC or Lokpal and only those who clear the check will be eligible for appointment.

This model is very likely to be found appalling - no, I did not say appealing - by the entrenched politicians for its simplicity that does away with all the cobweb that they have so painstakingly spun.  Can a party like AAP try and force this on the existing order?