Friends,
Bhopal Conference on Electoral reforms by ADR and National Election Watch has been quite an experience. The key-note address was delivered by Sri Navin Chawla, the CEC of India. He emphasized upon a large number of issues. Firstly he wanted that the power to deregister political parties shall be given to the Election Commission. He was of the view that many political parties had only got registered with the EC and had not fought elections for years. Quoting statistics, he said that nearly 700 out of the thousand odd political parties registered with the Commission had not fought any election for years. He was of the opinion that some of these parties might be used for nefarious and wrongful ends. The second issue that he presented was that the Commission was trying to make a small format regarding each of the candidates. Presently, the different formats that the candidates fill presenting information about them is huge and formidable, which has the tendency of becoming unwieldy. Hence, it is being thought by the Commission to have a much smaller format in which all the relevant details might be filled in. Another very important point that Sri Chawla presented was regarding "Paid news". He was of the opinion that the phenomenon of paid news, particularly in reference to the elections, had become a serious concern and needed to be addressed immediately before this malaise spread far and wide. Sri Chawla particularly praised Sri Laksmi Chand Jain, the eminent Gandhian and thanked him profusely for having come to attend the Conference. Lovingly calling Sri Jain as Uncle Laksmi, Sri Chawla was all praise for this old freedom fighter. He also praised the people from ADR like Sri Jagdish Chokkar, Sri Trilochan Sastry and Sri Anil Bairwal for their dedication to the cause. He was particularly impressed by the fact that the three had come to meet him not only some SUV but on hired 3-wheeler. He wanted others to emulate this kind of sincerity to the cause. Sri Mannikam Gandhi, the Lok Sabha MP from Congress emphasized more on the inner-party democracy in each of the political parties. He lamented the fact that all the political parties in India were presenting close-door features, which according to him, need to be changed immediately. Sri Kirit Somaiya, the Lok Sabha MP from BJP said that there was much that India had achieved during the last few years, including in the field of electoral reforms. These achievements need to be highlighted with a positive note. Sri Anil Dave, the Rajya Sabha MP from BJP again emphasized that many positive things had already taken place in the country. Sri Lakshmi Chand Jain, the eminent Gandhian emphasized on human values, internal purity, self-discipline and the need to stop the deterioration currently undergoing. He quoted a large number of examples from the pages of history in a much admired and respected speech. Sri Sanjay Bhusreddy, Secretary of the UP IAS Association tried to emphasize that there seemed to be a need to have a relook about section 171 A to 171 I of the Indian Penal Code, which relates to the electoral offences. In many of these, the punishment is only fine with no penal provisions. Similarly, as per him there were need to make some suitable changes particularly in section 77 and 78 of the Representation of People's Act. He was also of the view that the permission needed for financial expenditures shall be before the actual expenditure and not later on. Eminent newspaper editors and journalists bemoaned, decried and criticized the phenomenon of "paid news". They accepted it as a phenomenon present all the time but believed that its impact got increased during the election periods. It was proposed that new laws be framed for controlling and regulating this booming business. Those who spoke on this topic included the likes of Sri Shreenivasan Jain of NDTV, Sri K Amarnath, Secretary of Indian Journalist Union, Sri Bhaskar Rao of CMS and Sri L S Hardaniya, a senior journalist of MP. The topic of role of civil societies also came up. Here the main issues that came were- 1. The initiative taken by a Mumbai civil society to encourage the employees to go to vote, with a disincentive of cutting down one-day salary if he/she did not go to vote 2. Sri V V Rao of Andhra Pradesh claimed that there was serious problem with the Electronic voting machine which he was trying to bring before the Election commission 3. Sri Banwari Lal of Dalit Election Watch, Rajasthan was specific about the needs of the Dalit population in the elections and the way their genuine interests can be saved and prospered Sri I C Dwivedi, the retired IPS officer of UP associated with National Election watch for long, having great contributions in this field also attended the Conference where he suggested many ways and ideas based on his long experience in the service. I primarily emphasized upon the need of judicial reforms in the perspective of the electoral requirements. The only body that can get the matter whether a candidate is criminal or not decided is the Judiciary. Hence if through the various reform processes being initiated, the judicial process is speeded up it will certainly help the electoral system a lot. I feel the work being done by these people is of great worth. Amitabh Thakur, IPS, Currently at IIM Lucknow # 94155-34526
