Chennai: Making a strong pitch for electoral reforms, PMK’s Dharmapuri MP Dr Anbumani Ramadoss on Sunday announced that he would be writing to all the Members of Parliament in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha seeking their support for electoral reforms and about the large scale money distribution witnessed during the recent Tamil Nadu Assembly polls.
“I am meeting chief election commissioner Nazim Zaidi in New Delhi on Monday to stress on the need for electoral reforms. The election commission has become toothless. It has no power. It can’t disqualify a candidate even if they found the candidate indulged in distributing money,” he told reporters here. He said he would also raise the issue in the Parliamentary committee on electoral reforms which is meeting next week.
Dr Anbumani said that he would also be meeting leaders of the political parties in New Delhi to impress upon them to support the electoral reforms. “We want the candidates to be disqualified if found to be distributing money to the voters. The election of those candidates who are found to be distributing money should also be removed from the elected post. The political parties that had indulged in large scale money distribution should be derecognised and their symbol should be withheld,” he demanded.
Citing the example of Aravakurichi and Thanjavur constituency where elections were cancelled after the candidates were found of be distributing money, he said that even after the candidates were caught red handed, the commission was not able to disqualify them.
“Then what is the power of EC?” he wondered. He also wanted the Electronic Voting Machine to be replaced with the old paper ballot system. “The chief electoral officer should be appointed from other state cadres and he/she should not belong to the same state,” he said, seeking a proportional representation system of election.
“As many as 22 per cent of the voters who voted in the state assembly polls, did not vote for both AIADMK and DMK but there is no representation for them,” he said. PMK leader also said that his party would contest the local body on its own. When asked whether the local body polls would be held in a free and fair manner, he said that it won’t be free.
“When the assembly election conducted by the Election Commission itself cannot be held fairly, the local body polls which will be held by State EC will
not be free and fair,”
he said.
