M A I N   N E W S

Decide on women quota: EC

NEW DELHI, April 21 (PTI, UNI) — With uncertainty still looming large on the fate of Women’s Reservation Bill, the Election Commission today suggested that political parties put up a minimum agreed percentage of women candidates in Assembly and Parliamentary elections to enjoy recognition and privileges.

“The suggestion has the merit of not requiring Constitutional amendment, eliminating current controversies, and going forward with a simple amendment in the Representation of People’s Act (RPA). It will be for the political parties to decide the percentage to be fixed,” Chief Election Commissioner M.S. Gill told reporters.

If agreed to, the proposal could be put into effect by providing in the RP Act that a recognised political party, in order to continue to retain such recognition and enjoy all privileges, shall at every state Assembly and Parliamentary election that it contests ensure that it puts up the minimum agreed percentage of women candidates, he said.

“The commission is of the view that instead of following the reservation route, with the possibility of further internal reservation within reservation, it may be more desirable to insist on all recognised political parties giving adequate space to women in the political process,” he said.

Observing that if this idea was taken up, the controversy of further internal reservation would become unnecessary, Mr Gill said it would be open to political parties to give as many tickets as they pleased out of the percentage fixed to candidates from the less fortunate sections.

Mr Gill said that an all-party meeting convened by the commission on April 29 would discuss threadbare some of the key issues such as enhancing women’s representation in the decision making bodies, delimitation of constituencies and disciplinary jurisdiction of the commission over the officials employed in connection with polls.

The commission was also for amending the Representation of People’s Act to allow a voter anywhere in the country to contest elections to the Rajya Sabha irrespective of whether he or she was an “ordinary resident” where such polls were held.

Mr Gill pointed out that that a registered voter anywhere in the country was now allowed to contest elections to the Lok Sabha from any constituency.

The suggestion to amend Section 3 of the RP Act of 1951 to permit a voter registered anywhere in the country to contest Rajya Sabha election from any state was among one of the proposals to be discussed with the representatives of the recognised political parties at the meeting on April 29, he added.

“It is common knowledge that during the last several years, many well-known persons who were “ordinarily residents” of Delhi and other places had been elected to the Rajya Sabha from various parts of the country. Many such prominent personalities, who had been living in Delhi for ages had been elected to the Rajya Sabha from the states which they had never links in the past. For such elections, they got their names registered as voters by making incorrect declaration,” Dr Gill told a press conference here.

The CEC said it was necessary to clear the present confused situation which was often questioned by the people and the media.

On the issue of delimitation of constituencies, the CEC said the commission was faced with the scenario of conducting elections to various Lok Sabha and Assembly seats, which were largely incongruous in their character in so far as their population, areas and terrain was concerned.

The commission should have the power to remove the distortions from time to time which affected the very basic principle of elections namely ‘one-man-one-vote’.

To illustrate, he said, the Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha constituency at present had only about 3.76 lakh voters, whereas the number of electorate in Outer Delhi constituency was more than 31 lakhs. Similarly, Thane Parliamentary constituency in Maharashtra had about 27.71 lakh electorate in comparison to only about seven lakh voters in Mumbai South Parliamentary constituency, he said.

“It is, therefore, entirely in the fitness of things that the task of delimitation of constituencies for ironing out the imbalances that creep in from time to time should appropriately be entrusted to the three-member Election Commission”, Mr Gill said.

Strongly pleading for disciplinary jurisdiction of the commission over the officials employed in connection with polls, the CEC said that it was not a happy state of affair where two constitutional bodies like the Central Government and Election Commission seek to resolve their differences through a court of law. The issue was still pending before the Supreme Court, he said.

“The experience has been that during the course of elections, almost all political parties and contesting candidates have some grievance or the other, about bias and misconduct on the part of election officials.”

“In such circumstances, in order to ensure neutrality and impartiality on the part of the election-related officials it is very important that disciplinary jurisdiction over such election officials remains with the commission,” Mr Gill said, adding that the commission would urge the political parties during the meeting to give due consideration to this issue.