Narendra Modi talks of electoral reforms

Narendra Modi, the chief minister, has not been able to take the resignation of his minister Babu Bokhiria, who has been sentenced to three years in jail for illegal mining. But Narendra Modi, the leader, spoke at length on electoral reforms that would “force political parties to field the right candidates in the elections”.

Modi was addressing a gathering of over 200 young people at the Mahatma Mandir here in Gandhinagar on Saturday for an event organised by Citizens for Accountable Governance, a Facebook activist group, on Saturday.

He spent the entire day at the event listening to a host of speakers like former President APJ Abdul Kalam, HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh and other industry leaders, who held fort on How Government and Business can change to provide better opportunities to Indian youth. It seemed that Modi was trying to feel the pulse of the educated and intellectual youth especially what they thought about him as well as the country.

In fact, the gathering boasted of quite a substantial number of Muslim youths from Kashmir, United Kingdom and other parts of India. Some of those who attended the event also said that while many of the Muslim participants were dressed in formal executive outfits, others came in traditional Islamic clothes, even wearing skull cap and burqa.

The chief minister, however, said that he wanted to hear from the participants first before taking their questions. Needless to say, there were many questions and suggestions. Some of them even pointed to the reality of Gujarati society.

Mohammad Rafiq, a youth from U K and born in Ahmedabad, asked about the ‘disturbed area act’ in the state, which does not allow people from different ethnicities to purchase property in many areas of the city. He said that when the state was experiencing a boom in development, people from different ethnic backgrounds also wished to be part of that surge. Though they would like to live a good life, they cannot get houses in areas, which are in the heart of the city, because of their ethnicity. As a result, Rafiq contended that they had no other option than to buy houses in areas where the population of their background was simply bursting at the seams.

Another participant, Narayan Bhargav, asked: “Why can’t the political parties do away with caste and communal politics? Why can’t the government stop asking about the applicants’ caste in application forms.” To this, Modi replied that while the Gujarat government recruits teachers, he asks the teachers whether they had taught anyone who was illiterate in their families.

Besides, a participant from Kashmir, Wahid Rehman, asked why the youths of Kashmir were being left out of development while suggesting that Modi should help Kashmiri youths get jobs.

In his speech, the chief minister talked about the Gujarat government’s initiatives like having launched a drive to educate the girl child and Gunotsav to improve school education in the state. Modi also spoke about Gujarat’s initiative in electoral reforms. He said he could change the electoral system only in the elections to panchayats and institutes of local self-governance.

The chief minister further stated that the Gujarat assembly has passed a bill that would make voting compulsory in these elections and the bill also has provisions to reject any candidate that the voter does not like. “We have passed the bill.

But the governor has not signed it yet. If we can implement this, people would have the choice of not choosing any candidate if he or she is not good. This way, all parties would be forced to field good candidates in elections and people would get good candidates to vote for,” he pointed out.