The Hindu : Parties asked to endorse EC's poll reforms

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jul 07, 2002

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National

Parties asked to endorse EC's poll reforms

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI July 6. A group of eminent citizens has appealed to all the political parties to endorse the recent order of the Election Commission that candidates should disclose their criminal background, assets and liabilities and educational qualification.

The signatories, Jayaprakash Narayan, N. Bhaskara Rao, Naveen Surapaneni, Vinod Saighal, Promod Chawla and Anant Trivedi in a letter said "it is good to note that an all-party meeting is being held on July 8 to discuss electoral reforms''.

They said the recent Supreme Court judgment had strengthened the right of the voter to know the entire background of individual candidates.

Therefore the political parties should whole-heartedly support the recent order of the Election Commission to implement these directions.

They said all the major parties had been expressing deep concern about electoral reforms. Many committees and experts had studied the subject.

The Election Commission was doing its best to uphold the sanctity of our electoral process. But a lot more remains to be done.

The eminent citizens said, "voter registration is still flawed, and studies indicate many eligible voters' names are missing and ineligible names find place in the electoral rolls. This can be corrected by making voter registration simpler, more people-friendly and accessible by utilising the local post offices as a nodal agency''.

"Political parties ought to be strengthened by amendments to the X Schedule of the Constitution and effective checks against defections, even as the members' legitimate right to dissent is respected. Internal democratic norms in parties should be revitalised and more and more people must be attracted to play a meaningful role in political process''.

They further said, "representational legitimacy needs to be enhanced by providing for general elections based on party platform and party lists. Parties and candidates are starved of legitimate funds for political activity.''

``We need to strengthen their hands by providing tax incentives to political contributions, strengthening disclosure norms, promoting transparency and providing for public funding in a verifiable and fair manner.''

``All these and other reforms are crying for attention''.

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