A detailed 32-page electoral reforms document sent on July 30, 2004, by then chief election commissioner TS Krishnamurthy to the prime minister’s office has been gathering dust.
Is prime minister Manmohan Singh sitting on electoral reforms? A detailed 32-page electoral reforms document sent on July 30, 2004, by then chief election commissioner TS Krishnamurthy to the prime minister’s office has been gathering dust. Election Commission of India (ECI) sources said it is unlikely to see the light of day.
Present ECI officials also held discussions on the reforms with the law ministry and different interest groups in the country, but there was no progress after that.
The key proposal in the document is to amend section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. The proposal states that if a person is convicted at the trial stage, s/he will be disqualified from contesting elections. At present, a person is barred from contesting elections only after the Supreme Court confirms his/her conviction. The proposed amendment reserves the right of the person to appeal against the verdict, but prevents him from contesting elections unless s/he is set free by a higher court.
“There have been several instances of people charged with serious and heinous crimes such as murder and rape contesting elections, pending their trial, and even getting elected in a large number of cases. This leads to a very undesirable and embarrassing situation of lawbreakers becoming lawmakers and moving around under police protection,” the ECI’s note says.
The ECI also wants a ban on all government-sponsored advertisements six months prior to any election.
The proposal met with fierce resistance from both the state and central government as they see advertisements highlighting their achievements as a major way to influence voters. The ECI also proposed ‘negative voting’ wherein a voter can reject a candidate - one of the demands made by Team Anna during the Jan Lokpal Bill agitation.
Another recommendation made by the ECI is that a candidate who contests from two constituencies simultaneously must bear the cost of a by-election if he won both the seats. ECI sources said the approximate cost of holding a by-election was around Rs10 lakh in 2004.
Union law minister Salman Khurshid rubbished allegations that the government was sitting on electoral reforms. “The reforms are ready in a crisp form and will be discussed at an all-party meeting,” Khurshid told DNA. The minister said a core panel along with the ECI and his ministry carried out a year-long exercise of regional consultations before finalising the reforms.
They have also prepared an agenda for the all-party meeting. It includes de-criminalisation of politics, a long-needed review of the anti-defection law, the state financing the election expenditure of parties and candidates, regulation of the media and political parties and auditing of finances of the political parties. Also on the cards is a paper back-up of the electronic voting machines that print slips to prove that a person has cast his/her vote. This is to counter the opposition’s charge that the government rigs voting machines.
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