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All-party meet agrees on State funding of elections

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

In a bid to usher in much-needed electoral reforms, an all-party meeting today reached a consensus on State funding of elections, with Home Minister L K Advani announcing a seven-member committee headed by his predecessor Indrajit Gupta to concretise proposals for the purpose. Other members of the committee are Dr Manmohan Singh (Congress), Somnath Chatterjee (CPI-M), Sedapatti R Muthiah (AIADMK), Digvijay Singh (Samata Party), Madhukar Sarpotdar (Shiv Sena) and V K Malhotra (BJP).

The committee's recommendation will be given legislative shape during the winter session of Parliament, the minister added.

Advani said first it was proposed that former finance minister Manmohan Singh would head the committee, but he suggested that a senior parliamentarian should head it. The choice then fell on Gupta, who was also a member of the electoral reforms committee constituted in 1971, in which Advani was also a member along with A B Vajpayee.

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Advani pointed out that contrary to earlier such meetings, the all-party meeting had unanimously felt that election expenditure should be principally sustained by State funding, and it should be mandatory for political parties to maintain accounts.

He said after preliminary discussions, the committee had resolved to go into the suggestion whether companies should be allowed to make donations to political parties. While underlining that it was up to the committee to find out best what was to be done, Advani said his personal opinion was that it should not be allowed.

Referring to the delimitation of constituencies, the home minister said the all-party meeting felt that it should be undertaken only after 2001, when a new census would come into force. He also pointed out that the committee would recommend a ceiling regarding election expenditure. The delimitation of constituencies was frozen till the end of this century, he pointed out.

The home minister said the previous United Front government had sought to amend the Constitution regarding delimitation of constituencies, but the 11th Lok Sabha had ended before the pertinent legislation could be taken up.

The bill moved by the UF government regarding delimitation of constituencies envisaged that the number seats in the Lok Sabha or the state legislatures should not be increased. It was suggested only to readjust the boundaries of the constituencies within the states.

He said the meeting expressed its reservation on the model code of conduct. However, it was decided that the Election Commission be requested to convene a meeting of the representatives of recognised parties to discuss and evolve a uniform code of conduct, he pointed out.

The home minister said in the meeting's view, money, muscle and ministerial power had virtually distorted the electoral process and the situation needed to be expeditiously redeemed.

The political parties rejected a proposal that the security deposit be forfeited only if the candidate gets less than one-fourth of the total polled votes as against existing one-sixth of votes.

There was general agreement that there should be no change in the existing law, which allows the candidate to fight from two constituencies. The status quo will continue, the home minister further added.

All the political parties also favoured lowering of the age limit of candidates contesting elections to the Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies from 25 years to 21 years.

Similarly, they also agreed to bring down the age limit for the candidates contesting for the Rajya Sabha and the state council from the existing 30 years to 25 years.

This was felt necessary in viewing of lowering of voting age limit from 21 to 18 years.

So far four meetings on electoral reforms have been held since 1996, and a set of 24 proposals identified for discussion. Today's meeting was attended by 24 representatives belonging to 18 political parties.

Additional reportage: UNI

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