In her article “Striking at the root of corruption” (Nov. 27), Shailaja Chandra has pointed to the problem in a succinct way. The government should make statutory audit compulsory for all registered political parties. If politicians refuse to register their parties, banks should refuse to open accounts for them. The Election Commission should insist on political parties filing their audited accounts.
G.M. Rama Rao,Visakhapatnam
It is true that illegal and illegitimate expenditure in elections to lure the voter is the root cause of corruption. As long as politicians buy votes spending crores of rupees and as long as our voters accept and demand money, liquor and material to go to the election booth, corruption will not end. Everyone speaks and gives sermons on cleansing the political system but no one seems interested in belling the cat.
The only way to bring about a change is to convince young voters not to accept or demand anything from the candidates. The youth wing of social and voluntary organisations and college students must play a bigger role in campaigning against monetary inducements.
J.P. Reddy,Nalgonda
Criminalisation of politics is a colossal challenge to our democracy as it undermines our electoral system. People are certainly entitled to ‘untainted’ representatives. Political parties cannot be given a free hand to manipulate votes with the promise of freebies. We need stringent laws to govern the functioning of political parties. There should be a proper auditing of the accounts of parties. Elections, as a process, should reflect the highest levels of transparency.
Arjun R. Shankar,Thiruvananthapuram
Rather than create new laws, we should strengthen the Election Commission, which has the unenviable task of conducting elections on the basis of laws made to suit the interests of political parties.
The Commission should be given greater powers to regulate the model code of conduct in accordance with the condition prevailing at a particular place to make our democracy a real democracy.
Parduman Sharma,Sirsa
