Political party reforms a must ....Justice Venkatchaliah

“Political party reforms a must to have people not lose faith in our political system” says Justice Venkatachaliah

        Opaque system of funding of political parties and lack of transparency in their organisational elections detrimental to Indian democracy

New Delhi, 5^th March, 2013: “Political Party reforms are a must so that people do not lose faith in our political and electoral system. There is no substitute for transparency and accountability in a democracy”, said former Chief Justice of India, Shri Venkatachaliah, at a Round Table meeting organised by the National Election Watch (NEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) at the India International Centre here yesterday. The roundtable saw participation from eminent people drawn from various fields like judiciary, police, bureaucracy, media, civil society, election commission, information commission, etc.  A political party bill which has been prepared under the chairmanship of Justice Venkatachaliah was discussed at the roundtable.

Initiating the discussion, Justice Venkatachaliah stated that the citizens are slowly losing confidence in the political parties and there will be utter chaos and confusion unless the parties re-visit the situation and change the current scenario. He stated that the parties must introspect and find an answer to the questions on political party reforms.

Former CEC Mr. Krishnamoorthy said that political parties must start to conduct organisational elections in an open and transparent manner and not just within the confines of their four walls. These political parties’ organisational election should be open to the media and thus to the public inorder to gain back the trust of the people by being more transparent. Talking about the manifestos of the parties, Mr Krishnamoorthy said that while the manifestos openly promise freebies to the public, “only public good can be promised but not a private good especially by providing it to a specific class and dividing the society in the process”.  There were no provisions in the existing law on party disputes and the political parties should disclose the way in which they sort their inner disputes. He suggested a National Election Fund for funding of political parties to be set up wherein donations from both corporates and individuals would go into the fund and distributed to the parties based on an advisory board set up by the ECI.

Mr. Jay Panda, BJD MP from Orissa, who has introduced three private member bills in the parliament to stop the criminalization of politics by instituting fast track cases for the elected members, disallowing MPs/MLAs to continue as members of legislative bodies in spite of being convicted and a bill to improve the effectiveness of prosecution for more effective criminal justice system, also participated in the discussions. He went on to emphasize the need and importance to bring political party reforms. Stressing that the organisational elections should be more transparent, he also suggested incentives to the parties to move towards transparency and accountability.

Mr.  Mendiratta, the legal advisor to the Election Commission of India (ECI), represented the Election Commission in the consultations. He said that the ECI, as a result of various court judgments, was constrained as it did not have the powers to deregister a party. However, he added that ECI has been asking for such a bill for the last 20 years.

Observing that there will be very strong opposition to the bill, the current Chief Information Commissioner, Mr Satyanand Mishra also stressed on the need to educate public on this issue. He said that while more new laws may not bring different results, the key was to also effectively implement the existing laws. He also felt that the financial transparency was a must in the functioning of the political party.

Other participants that endorsed the bill included Ms Aruna Roy of MKSS, Ms Shailaja Chandra, former Chief Secretary to the Delhi Government, Mr TN Chaturvedi, former CAG, Mr Sudhish Pai, senior Advocate, Mr. Shahid Khan(former member CBDT) and Mr PC Jha (former chairman, CBEC).

Contact Details

Media and Journalist Helpline +91 80103 94248 Email: adr@adrindia.org

Anil Bairwal, National Coordinator National Election Watch, and Association for Democratic Reforms 011 4081 7601, +91 9999310100 adr@adrIndia.org, anil@adrIndia.org

Prof Jagdeep Chhokar IIM Ahmedabad Founder Member National Election Watch, Association for Democratic Reforms +919999620944 jchhokar@gmail.com

Prof Trilochan Sastry IIM Bangalore Founder Member, National Election Watch, Association for Democratic Reforms +919448353285, trilochans@IIMB.ERNET.IN

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