A group of eminent citizens, led by the former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and the former Law Minister Ram Jethmalani, have urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to implement the recommendations of the Election Commission and the Law Commission on electoral reforms ahead of the Assembly elections in four States.
In a letter on Wednesday, Mr. Chatterjee and Mr. Jethmalani, along with the former Chief Justice of the Calcutta and the Punjab and Haryana High Courts D.S. Tewatia, the former Solicitor-General Mohan Parasaran and several other lawyers and former bureaucrats, urged Mr. Modi to implement long-pending electoral and legal reforms.
Lamenting the increasing number of legislators with criminal records in the Assemblies, the letter seeks the implementation of these recommendations before the October elections in Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. “Faulty electoral system is the fountainhead of all aberrations Indian democracy is faced with today … As the country’s PM, you have taken a pledge to first cleanse the legislatures from criminals … an exigency has arisen in view of the impending elections … ,” the letter says.
