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`Govt. keen on Bill to end defections'

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI OCT. 11. Asserting that electoral reforms were needed to strengthen democracy in the country, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, said today that the National Democratic Alliance Government at the Centre had taken a major initiative in this direction by getting three Bills passed in the last parliamentary session.

Speaking at the Jayaprakash Narayan birth centenary function at the BJP headquarters here, he said, "we have moved forward towards curbing the use of black money by making it compulsory for political parties to receive funds above Rs. 20,000 through cheques only, while donors get relief in income tax. Similarly, defence personnel, who so far were left disenfranchised, can now make use of proxy voting."

Another major area of concern was the voting pattern in the Rajya Sabha elections where members of lesser-known parties got elected by money power. So, it had been decided to introduce open ballot which would check horse trading, he said. Also, anybody could now contest the elections from anywhere in the country.

"We are also keen on getting Bills passed on two major issues — amendment in the Anti-Defection Law to make defection of MPs and MLAs impossible and to restrict the number of Ministers in any government. We have seen that in some north-eastern States, all the MLAs of a ruling party are made Ministers. We want the size of the Council of Ministers to be limited to 15 per cent of the total strength of Parliament and the Legislative Assemblies," he said.

Recalling that he first met JP when the latter called on him after reading his article on poll reforms, Mr. Advani said the BJP owed a lot to the great leader and his ideology which had been responsible for the growth and development of the party.

"Our steps towards electoral reforms are a tribute to JP, who always wanted to curb the influence of money in elections. Similarly, the NDA Government has taken several programmes such as poverty alleviation, education, decentralisation of power and infrastructural development which JP wanted to implement."

Speaking on the occasion, the BJP president, Venkaiah Naidu, said the NDA Government should do "justice" to great leaders of India such as Jayaprakash Narayan, Subhash Chandra Bose, Vallabh Bhai Patel, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and Ram Manohar Lohia and honour their contributions to the freedom movement and nation development by naming important projects after them.

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