The Hindu : 'Law needed to regulate formation of parties'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 11, 2003

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'Law needed to regulate formation of parties'

By Our Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD MAY 10. The Election Commissioner, T.S. Krishnamurthy, today advocated a comprehensive law to regulate the formation and conduct of political parties in the country to make them more accountable to the people.

``The time is running out. Unless we make the political parties function in a democratic manner and accountable to the people at the earliest, our robust, vibrant, popular democracy may degenerate into a vicious democracy,'' he said.

He was inaugurating here the first national workshop on "Electoral Reforms and Right to Information'', organised by the Ahmedabad-based Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and other voluntary organisations in different parts of the country working in the field.

He said though India had a "reasonably good'' election system, it still could not claim to be a "perfect democracy''. He agreed that none of the country in the world could claim to have developed a perfect democratic system, but said in India the problem was the lack of a comprehensive Act to regulate the functioning of the political parties. "The existing rules are all scattered and it will be desirable to have a comprehensive law.''

Pointing out that the Election Commission held a meeting in Delhi yesterday of the chief electoral officers of various States for further "fine tuning'' the election system, Mr. Krishnamurthy said the EC would continue to have an "aggressive and independent approach and support'' for all electoral reforms.

Welcoming the recent judgment of the Supreme Court making it mandatory for the candidates to disclose their background, Mr. Krishnamurthy said the EC would soon be forming guidelines in the light of the apex court's judgment. But he said though it would be an important step towards electoral reforms, this alone would not ensure victory of good candidates and good governance. "The people have to exert power to vote out the bad candidates and must also force the political parties to set up only good and clean candidates.''

He regretted that "money and muscle power'' often dictated the outcome of the elections and the loopholes in the existing Act did not allow the EC to ensure "totally free and fair elections''. The country could still improve the "quality of elections and the quality of governance'' if people forced political parties and candidates to disclose their past.

He said that in the era of globalisation when every sector talked of "free market", political parties should also "come out clean in the free market voluntarily disclosing their strength and weaknesses in seeking votes from the people''. The parties should also have their own research groups to study the pattern of governance so that the issues were properly focussed.

He recalled that the Bhattacharya committee for electoral reforms had also recommended a comprehensive law to regulate the functioning of political parties. He said various wings of the administration and the democratic system including the media, bureaucracy, the academics, the judiciary and others had definite roles to play in reforming the election system and ensure "good governance".

Appreciating the steps taken by the ADR during the December Gujarat Assembly elections in publishing the "criminal background'' of the candidates, he said the election watch committee formed by it should serve as an eye-opener to other States and should be replicated in the five States including Mizoram going to the polls later this year. The EC would welcome "constructive suggestions'' from voluntary organisations, whose cooperation to reach to the voters was a must, provided such organisations did not have "political biases". The EC, he said, do not want "such suggestions which have political overtones", he cautioned.

Mr. Krishnamurthy said the EC was considering a proposal of the United Nations to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with it for the Indian Election Commission to help and organise elections in some other countries where democracy was still at an infant stage. Pointing out that the Election Commission in Australia had such authority to commercially compete with other agencies to help in elections in other countries, he said such a measure would increase "India's credibility'' in the rest of the world.

Voluntary organisations from various States would discuss for two days and exchange their experiences at the workshop to formulate an "action plan'' for electoral reforms in the country.

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