The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday released the agenda of an all-party meeting on May 12, which includes deliberations on the issue of Electronic Voting Machine security and procedure/ processes of the "tampering" challenge. Suggestions would be invited from all the parties on the issues.
Some suggestions on revisiting the rules pertaining to counting of paper slips from the VVPAT system will also be discussed.
The proposal of making the crime of bribery and undue influence during elections a cognisable offence tops the list. The Commission is of the opinion that law has to be amended to make the penal provisions in this regard more stringent. In the Representation of the People Act, there is a specific Section (58A) that empowers the Commission to order a repoll or countermand election in a constituency in the event of booth capturing.
However, there is no specific provision to deal with cases of bribery of electors.
The Commission has proposed that anyone, against whom charges of the offence of bribery is framed, he or she should be disqualified from contesting elections.
"In order to address the issue of criminalisation of politics, the Commission has been recommending disqualification even prior to the conviction by court in the case of serious offences," the Commission said.
The Commission has proposed that for offences punishable by imprisonment of five years or more for a case registered at least six months earlier, disqualification should commence from the stage the charges are framed by the court.
In order to ensure more transparency in funding of political parties, the Commission has invited them to discuss several proposals. Some of the proposals are: donations in cash should not exceed Rs. 20 crore or 20% of the total donations in a year, whichever is less; for cash donations, income tax exemption should be accordingly restricted; anonymous donations above Rs.2,000 should be prohibited; and no income tax exemption be given in such a case.
