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Title: Discussion regarding Electoral Reforms raised by Shri Devendra Prasad Yadav on 3rd May, 2005.

15.28 hrs. DUSCUSSION UNDER RULE 193 Electoral Reforms – contd.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The House will now take up further discussion regarding Electoral Reforms raised by Shri Devendra Prasad Yadav. Shri Sudhakar Reddy may speak now.

SHRI SURAVARAM SUDHAKAR REDDY (NALGONDA): Sir, comprehensive electoral reforms is the need of the hour to create confidence among the people to improve voting in India. Some ills of the system are the bye-products of the structural defects in the electoral system. Lop-sided and corrupt system pave way for petty leaders and mafia gangsters to gatecrash into the Legislatures.

A number of speakers before me spoke about the need for electoral reforms. These electoral reforms are required to create a cadre of dedicated politicians in this country, politicians who are men of ability, persons of ability and acumen, persons with patriotic fervour and persons who can serve this country better. One of the hon. Members, Prof. Ram Gopal Yadav was asking a question in the House "Why are you singling out politicians as criminals?"

He had asked a couple of questions with regard to this issue. Are there no criminals among the judges? Are there no criminals among the lawyers? Why single-out only the politicians? I would like to humbly submit to him that politicians are supposed to be the leaders of this country. Anybody can be corrupt and of criminal nsature, but politicians cannot be criminals because politicians are supposed to be the Members of Parliament, who are the lawmakers. They are to set examples for the posterity, and to the people. There cannot be criminals among them. Therefore, the electoral system, which helps us to create this breed of dedicated politicians in this country, has to be foolproof.

A number of suggestions have come from the Hon. Members about this issue. Various Committees constituted by the Government of India have also given a number of suggestions on this issue. The Goswami Committee Report of 1990, the Indrajit Gupta Committee Report of 1998, the Law Commission’s Report on Electoral Reforms, the Election Commission’s recommendations on Electoral Reforms, and finally, the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution in the name of Justice Venkatachaliah have all dealt very eloquently with the need for electoral reforms.

Much has been said about the question of money power and the cost of elections. I would feel that Indrajit Gupta Committee recommendations should be accepted. More important than this is that there should be a broad consensus among all the political parties in the country that they would not go for unnecessary expenditure in the elections. If there is an agreement between all the parties that they will not bribe the voters, they will not give anything in kind or they will not incur any expenditure on extravaganza and if they can limit the expenditure to a particular level and if all of them evolve a model code of conduct, the problem concerning the cost of elections and the problem of money power could be eliminated. Therefore, we will have to think of innovative ways, and there is no dearth of ideas on electoral reforms. There is abundant literature existing in various sources of material. What is lacking today is the political will. Even Hon"ble Shri Advani brought a unanimous resolution in the Parliament asking for electoral reforms. Now, the time has come when we should be able to arrive at a consensus. We are the masters who can bring these reforms, and the sooner the electoral reforms are done the better it is for all of us.