Centre mulls reforming electoral process

The Centre is seriously contemplating measures to reform the electoral process in the country in next three years. Union law minister M Veerappa Moily said a national workshop on electoral reforms will be held in June to elicit expert opinion and national consensus on the issue.

Inaugurating the national workshop on ‘Electoral Reforms: Law and Campaign Finance’ organised by Society for Human Rights Law (SHRL) and Karnatak University’s on Sunday, Moily said his ministry was keen on reforming the judiciary and legal education besides electoral process.

He said a national workshop on bringing second generation reforms in legal education would be organised in April this year.

Expressing optimism on the future of parliamentary system in India, Moily said with all limitations, democracy in India was the best in the world and there is scope for strengthening the system further with proper measures.

Moily said, he believed in reforms through ‘creative destruction’ by which he meant destroying unwanted things in the system to purify it.

“We cannot change a person. But we can change the system and the persons will try to fit into the changed system,” he asserted.

On the debate over the country being fit for democracy, Moily said, a country will be made fit through democracy.

On money playing a major role in the electoral process, Moily said money could destroy the democratic institutions and electoral process. “There is need to reduce the influence of money,” he said. Parliament and assembly should not be a congregation of ambassadors with hostile interests. Vested interests will eat into the vital organs of the democracy, he said.

Noting that money power was distorting the electoral process, judiciary and parliamentary procedures, Moily called for a national consensus to curb unethical practices.

Deputy chairman of State Planning Committee and BJP MLC D H Shankar Murthy said the existing laws and rules were capable of regulating the unethical practices and there should be a will on the part of politicians and law enforcement authorities to drive out the evils. He said, bribing voters was an insult to the people who were the masters in a democracy.

JD(S) spokesman and MLC Y S V Datta noted that the measures taken over the years to reform the electoral system and the practices adopted by the political parties were inversely proportional.

“The malpractices in elections have risen with more number of reform measures,” he observed and blamed the political parties for deliberately allowing for loopholes in the laws to regulate malpractices during elections. He wanted all the political parties to come together to cement the loopholes in the laws.