EC notice to Gopinath Munde ridiculous: Jayaprakash Narayan

Terming as "perfunctory and ridiculous" the show cause notice served by Election Commission on BJP leader Gopinath Munde over his poll spending remark, Lok Satta Party national president N Jayaprakash Narayan today expressed the need to generate a public debate on electoral reforms.
In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath, Narayan dubbed the notice as "perfunctory, bureaucratic and ridiculous", and urged the poll regulator to examine the issue of use of money power in elections "clinically, comprehensively and dispassionately" and strive to generate a serious public debate on electoral reforms and remedial action.
"The ECI should treat Munde's or any other such individual case as an opportunity to generate a serious public debate on electoral reforms and remedial action.

"Though it has no powers to reform the electoral system, the ECI can certainly catalyse a serious and fruitful debate among political parties, government, media and civil society," the bureaucrat-turned-politician said.
"Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee confirmed the scale and magnitude of this grave democratic distortion when he told a parliamentary committee that every legislator starts his career with the lie of the false election return he files," Narayan pointed out.
He said that Munde merely and openly acknowledged what has been public knowledge all along.

The Election Commission recently issued a show cause notice to Munde over his remark that he had spent Rs 8 crore towards campaigning for the 2009 Lok Sabha election he had contested from Beed constituency in Maharashtra.

Narayan said that voters take money from all the major candidates and vote for whoever they want.
"Electoral expenditure may not guarantee victory but non-expenditure guarantees defeat. Huge investment in elections has thus become an entry fee to have a realistic chance of success," Narayan observed.