Скачать или смотреть Anti-Defection Law & panel for choosing Election Commissioners must be reformed: Former Minister I&B

Manish Tewari, a former Minister for Information and Broadcasting and Congress MP from Chandigarh, who has introduced a Private Member’s Bill in the Lok Sabha seeking to amend the Anti-Defection Law, believes that as it stands the law has completely failed to prevent defections whilst, contrarily, it’s throttling democracy by converting MPs and MLAs into mere "voting machines" for their party leadership. As a result, it has stripped them of their "imperatives of constituency, conscience and common sense."



Mr. Tewari also believes the collegium for choosing the CEC and ECs must be expanded to include both the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and the Chief Justice of India. That would ensure that the government and the opposition have equal weightage in the collegium. This, he believes, is essential to restore and protect the credibility of the Election Commission.



Mr. Tewari believes both the reforms he is advocating are fundamental to the interests of Indian democracy. He believes that MPs across the spectrum will want to support his proposed reform of the Anti-Defection Law, because it's in their interest to do so, but the catch is that party leaderships may be reluctant to do so because it would loosen their grip over their MPs and MLAs.



He also hopes that the present ruling alliance can be convinced of the need to amend and expand the collegium for choosing the CEC and EC because it's in the greater interest of Indian democracy to do so.



I will stop there. These are two fundamental reforms and it would be worth your while to hear Mr. Tewari’s discussion of them and his reasons for advocating these reforms and how he hopes he can get around the challenge of having them accepted and passed.


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