AAP MP takes on Centre on electoral reforms: ‘Stop use of money power’

Ravi S Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 22

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After having missed an opportunity to express his party’s views during a discussion on the Bill to amend election laws in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Aam Aadmi Party’s Member of Parliament Sushil Gupta on Wednesday took a jibe at the Narendra Modi government saying it should stop the use of money power as an electoral instrument.

Gupta was absent when his name was called by the Chair to put forth his party’s views on the Bill. Outside Parliament, Gupta said the money power used to influence elections was eating into the innards of democracy.

He said the increasing use of money and muscle power has rendered the elections in the country “diseased and debilitated”.

“The elections have been blighted and the Centre can not blind side it. The present regime is drunk on power,” Gupta said.

The refrain of the opposition parties in the states and at the Centre has been the use of money power by the ruling cliques to change the voting patterns.

Gupta further said that the BJP-led government at the Centre should also desist from allegedly creating problems for the governments of the opposition parties in the states.

“The opposition parties form governments through a bona fide mandate of the voters. Malafide moves against them are also an effort to belittle the election process,” he said.

Launching a tirade against the Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, who had justified the election laws amendment bill in Rajya Sabha on ground that it was aimed to purge the election roll by linking it with Aadhaar number and to make the elections fair, Gupta said the government is indulging in “smoke and mirror” policy in the matter.

“What about breaking up parties by weaning away MLAs?” Gupta said.

“All the claimed purity of election process ends up in smokes, just because the ruling party at the Centre is prone to have a blast at the expense of smaller parties,” he added.

The AAP is apparently making every attempt to step up its visibility vis-a-vis the Union government in view of the upcoming elections in five states, including in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

It is on a move to go national, banking on its claimed clean image of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, its national convener, and his good governance in National Capital Territory of Delhi.