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RS members plead for electoral reforms

A committee headed by former home minister Indrajit Gupta is expected to submit its report by next month on state funding of elections, Power Minister P R Kumaramangalam informed the Rajya Sabha today.

Replying to the debate on a private member's bill on electoral reforms, he said a previous committee headed by Dinesh Goswami had rejected the idea of donations to political parties by cheque.

An all-party meeting will be called to discuss the report so that the government could take all views before finalising a bill in that regard.

Prior to his assurance, Rajya Sabha members cutting across party lines today stressed the dire need for electoral reforms to do away with the growing role of muscle and money power in elections.

Resuming the debate, Raghav Ji (BJP) said it was unfortunate that people with criminal antecedents were being elected on the basis of their money and muscle power.

Raghav Ji said changes in electoral laws should be made to ensure that elected bodies at any level should continue for at least five years without any threat of being dissolved. This will end the era of instability in the country, he added.

Instability gripped the state assemblies since 1967 while the Lok Sabha has continued to pass through this phase since 1977, Raghav Ji said.

Jalaludin Ansari (CPI) said it was really amusing that those who sit on the opposition benches raise the issue of electoral reforms but forget it after coming to power. He said money and muscle power was being used by all the political parties in the country.

Ansari said earlier, the political parties used to hire criminals for winning elections and now the criminals themselves have learnt to win the elections using their muscle power after being financed by political parties.

He said any attempt to reduce the minimum age of a candidate from 25 years would be dangerous. He suggested the laws should be changed in such a manner that the electorate get the power to recall their representatives if he or she has failed to come up to their expectations.

Ansari urged the government to table a comprehensive electoral reforms bill in the house.

S S Ahluwalia of the Congress said the issuance of identity cards to 930 million people, many of whom did not have clothes on their backs and roofs over their heads, was not practicable.

He said in Bihar, from where he hailed, he knew of homes where three or four women would have only one set of clothes among them so that only one of them could go outdoors at a time.

In such a situation it could well be visualised that landowners would deprive the poor people of their identity cards and misuse them for their own ends, he cautioned.

Ish Dutt Yadav of the Samajwadi Party demanded an increase in the security deposit to prevent non-serious candidates and those who wished to split votes from contesting.

He said it was more important to enforce existing provisions rather than bring on new ones. For example, people who have been convicted, such as a sitting chief minister he did not name, should not have been allowed to contest.

Yadav said it was urgent that dummy candidates be prevented from contesting and he praised the work of former chief election commissioner T N Seshan in this regard.

Satish Pradhan (SS) suggested that the government scrap the issuance of whip system in a parliamentary democracy as the voting is done by ballots.

Virendra Kataria (Cong) stressed the need for a total review of the election system and also suggested for the setting up a permanent electoral reform commission.

Wasim Ahamed (independent) called upon all the political parties not to encourage the criminals and candidates with a bad image.

UNI

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