Ec Wants Security Deposit For Presidential Polls Hiked

The Election Commission yesterday urged the Centre to immediately promulgate an ordinance to raise the security deposit and the number of proposers for presidential candidates to discourage non-serious contestants for the polls to the country s highest office, notification for which was likely to be issued in the first week of June.

The necessary amendments to the Presidential and Cice-presidential Elections Act, 1952 should be brought about without any further delay as the Commission is likely to announce the presidential election schedule immediately after the completion of the May 29 bye elections to three parliamentary and nine Assembly seats, election commissioner G V G Krishnamurty told newspersons here.

 

While the five-year tenure of President Shanker Dayal Sharma expires on July 24, the term of vice-president K R Narayanan ends on August 20. Noting that it was for the Parliament and the government to fix the security deposit and the number of proposers, Krishnamurty felt that the security deposit could be hiked to Rs 15,000 from the present Rs 2,500 and the number of proposers and seconders increased to 20 each from the present figure of ten each.

Regretting that the government had remained silent to the suggestions of the commission, Krishnamurty said that chief election commissioner M S Gill had written to the government first on February 18 this year and again send a reminder on May 16 requesting the government to bring in a legislation during the just ended budget session of Parliament if the government is really interested in discouraging non-serious candidates for the country s highest office, then government should act immediately and come up with an ordinance before the election schedule is announced by the Commission, the election commissioner said. Giving reasons for the commission s suggestions, Krishnamurty said the decision to raise the security deposit for MPs to Rs 10,000 and for MLAs to Rs 5000 during the 1996 general elections and Assembly polls had a salutory effect as the move drastically brought down the number of non-serious candidates.

Keeping in view the security deposit amount for MPs and MLAs, the amount for the presidential election should be Rs 15,000, he said adding that the number of candidates for Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh last year and in Punjab this year was just about 25 per cent of what was estimated by the Commission.

On the issue of proposers and seconders, Krishnamurty said the total electoral college for the presidential polls was 4,848 including 776 from the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha and 4,072 from the state legislatures.

Just one per cent of the electoral college comes to 48 and the President of India should be able to have that many proposers and seconders, he said adding that the figure of proposers and seconders should be at least twenty each. Asked about his views on issuance of whip by political parties for the presidential poll, Krishanmurty refrained from commenting saying at present a national debate is going on.

He asserted that the Commission would ensure that the presidential election was as transparent as possible as it drew powers in this regard from Article 324 of the Constitution and the Parliamentary Act. On organisational elections currently on in the Congress, the Janata Dal and other political parties, Krishnamurty said the Commission is happy that the inner-party elections are being held but I do not want comment on the way they are being held.