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SHRI RAM NAIK: Friendship will always be there. … (Interruptions)

SHRI SOMNATH CHATTERJEE : Friendship will always be there so long as you do not totally go away, go astray. Do not clarify too many times yourself. … (Interruptions) We have the privilege of working together, training in this House and working in the same Committees. I have seen his passionate devotion to whatever job he does. I admire it sincerely. … (Interruptions) This is an issue which nobody can deny. I am sure that electoral reforms is a very important issue in this country. I have had the privilege of being a Member of the Committee in 1971, which was set up by the hon. Speaker in which Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Shri L.K. Advani were very important Members. There were other important Members also. I had the occasion to work with them. That was presided over by Shri C. Jagannath Rao, the former Minister of Law of the Congress Government. Then, there was a non-official Committee under the leadership of Shri V.M. Tarkunde. I am sure my good friend, Shri Arun Jaitely is aware of it. Then, we had the Dinesh Goswami Committee.

Sir, the recommendations of these Committees have been unanimous. I had thought that when a great champion of electoral reforms like Shri L.K. Advani becomes the Minister of Home Affairs, he would pursue it very vigorously. He used to make a complaint. Naturally, there were a lot of grievances and a lot of reports, but there was no action. After he became the Minister of Home Affairs, when we raised this issue, he said that there has been one issue on which there has been unanimity of views, namely, State-funding of elections. He formed a Committee on that. We had the pleasure of having Shri Indrajit Gupta as our leader, as the Chairman of the Committee. I had the pleasure of being a Member of that Committee. Dr.Vijay Kumar Malhotra was also a Member. Those Committees were represented by very senior Members. Dr. Manmohan Singh was a Member of this Committee and other Members were also there. In that Committee, certain unanimous suggestions were given and some of them were not very revolutionary because we were conscious about the funds available for this. It was made known to us that not too much funds would be available.