Azad moves Bill to undo bar on illiterate

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 29

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad today moved a private member’s Bill in the Rajya Sabha to undo the recent laws passed by the BJP-led Haryana and Rajasthan governments to bar the illiterate from contesting the panchayat poll . The law was later upheld by the Supreme Court.

In his Constitutional Amendment Bill 2016, moved as a private Bill today, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Azad sought changes to the Constitution to explicitly define the fundamental right of all citizens to contest all electoral offices, from the Lok Sabha and state legislature to the panchayat and municipality, and prevent governments from excluding people from elections.

Azad argues for insertion of Article 21 A titled “Right to Contest for Electoral Office” in the Constitution to state that every Indian citizen will have the right to contest all elections and no court order or executive decision would stand in his way.

The bill, brought to overturn the Haryana Panchayati Raj Amendment Act 2015 and a similar law in Rajasthan comes a month after the Rajya Sabha voted for a related amendment to the motion of thanks on the President’s Address.

Azad told TNS that the Congress would take the matter to a logical conclusion, with party chief Sonia Gandhi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi personally pushing the cause.

The Congress’ argument for bringing the Bill is – new state laws bar several women, especially Muslim women and SCs from contesting elections. In Haryana alone, 68 per cent SC women and 41 pc SC men can’t contest the panchayat poll anymore. For these elections, Haryana has prescribed a minimum qualification of matriculation for general category contestants; Class VIII for women and SC candidates and Class V for SC women candidates.