Tamil Nadu   

“Law needed to make parties submit audited accounts every year”

— Photo: R. Ragu

SUGGESTING WAYS: N. Gopalaswami, Chief Election Commissioner of India, delivering a lecture on electoral democracy at the Anna Institute of Management on Tuesday.

CHENNAI: Legislation that will make it mandatory for political parties to submit audited accounts every year is key to shielding India’s electoral democracy from the influx of illegal funds during elections, Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami said on Tuesday.

Mapping the road ahead for Indian democracy at the third lecture of an annual series organised by the Scientific Research Association for Economics and Finance, Anna Institute of Management, he said at present there was no ceiling on party expenditure on electioneering. Nor were parties required to furnish a statement of accounts.

Mr. Gopalaswami said no action had been initiated on a proposal mooted by the Election Commission to bring in a law that would make it mandatory for parties to subject their accounts to an auditing agency approved by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

He termed “badly kept secret,” the fact that parties and their candidates were spending far in excess of the prescribed ceiling of Rs.10 lakh for Assembly elections and Rs.25 lakh for Lok Sabha elections.

On a conservative estimate, the government spent around Rs.3 crore per constituency for elections (an estimated Rs.2,220 crore nationally), while the actuals a candidate and political party expended on an electioneering campaign could be in the region of Rs.5,000 crore.

He dubbed as “ridiculous,” a 2003 amendment to the Representation of the People Act that allowed to parties to receive any amount of donation, the only catch being that an acknowledgement was required for the donor to claim income tax exemption.

According to Mr. Gopalaswami, the government was yet to act on a recommendation to empower the Election Commission to de-register parties that had failed to contest an election in five years.

The CEC also proposed debarring candidates accused of heinous crimes such as murder, abduction or rape, and charge-sheeted, from contesting elections until they were cleared of charges.

He said a disturbing fallout of the fragmentation of the polity was that in the previous elections in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, a majority of the winning candidates squeezed out victory by securing barely 30 per cent of the votes polled.

He advocated making voting compulsory as was being successfully followed in a country like Australia.

In his presidential address, former Chief Vigilance Commissioner, N. Vittal, said the challenge was to design a system for the electoral democracy that could weather the rising influence of money and muscle power, the clout of regional parties on the national stage — as a result of which “we now voted our caste instead of casting our vote”— and the increasing criminalisation of politics.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Now, holiday travel takes a hit
Grounded by the high costs
Safety stripes
Wages for job scheme workers paid through banks
Good response to medical camp
Highway in my eyes
2 dead, 1 injured in accident
Waiting for a makeover
Inauguration
Former V-C killed in accident
Woman kills daughter, hangs herself
Grand event
“Sensitise masses to gender equality”
Youth hit by bus, dies
“Avoid shortcoming in development works”
“Revise tax for commercial buildings”
Contests to be held for students
‘Spot supply’
4,000 SHGs to get revolving fund
Three boxes of safety cracker in post box
Steps to weed out bogus ration cards
DMK organises contest
Mettur level
Corporation-Panchayat locked in garbage dumping row
National symposium
Jewel loan scheme
Balancing act
Students injured
60 bags of ration rice seized
Programme for drivers of school, college vehicles
Blood donated
Hindered by height
It’s a burning problem in southern suburbs of Chennai
Mobile phones, cash stolen from shop
A study in contrast
Action against two electoral officers
SETC crew strike work
Valvil Ori festival showcases tribal culture
Diabetologist conferred FRCP
Ex-servicemen to take out rally
Conference to focus on infectious diseases
High Court constitutes committee
“Law needed to make parties submit audited accounts every year”
State told to file affidavit on cases filed by Dowry Prohibition Officers
Shortfall likely in kuruvai coverage
Plan to construct four fishing harbours
“Congress tired of asking for posts”
Arasu officials’ complaint against Sun TV network
Guidelines on extending hospitality for Chief Justice, Judges adopted

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu