Plea in SC seeks direction to Centre, poll panel to regulate political parties

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 19

Amid the ongoing assembly polls in five states, a PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Centre and the Election Commission to take steps to regulate political parties and to make them accountable for the promises made in their election manifestos.

Petitioner Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay – a Delhi BJP leader and advocate – has also sought a direction to the Election Commission to seize the election symbol and deregister/derecognize political parties, which fail to fulfil their “essential rational promises made in election manifestos”.

This is the second PIL filed by Upadhyay on electoral reforms in as many months. As political parties attempted to woo the electorate by populist promises in the ongoing assembly polls, Upadhyay had last month filed another PIL that demanded irrational freebies using public funds to be declared unconstitutional. He had contended that “promise of irrational freebies from public funds before elections unduly influences voters, disturbs level-playing field, shakes the roots of a free and fair election, and vitiates purity of election process.”

“The political parties must refrain from giving exaggerated promises as it may burden the public money kept in state funds, during times of financial distress. It also agreed that not all promises are corrupt, but many are and so guidelines must be given by the Election Commission,” Upadhyay submitted in his latest PIL.

He pointed out that the Aam Aadmi Party promised Jan Lokpal Bill-Swaraj Bill in the 2013, 2015 and 2020 election manifesto but did nothing to effectuate them.

This is happening in all states because neither the Centre has enacted a law to regulate the functioning of political parties and their election manifesto nor has the ECI made any guideline, Upadhyay submitted.

He said the BJP too has been repeatedly making the promise to enact a Uniform Civil Code.

“It currently has an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha, even if it is short of numbers in the Rajya Sabha. In such a situation, what would be the legal hassle if someone takes the BJP to Court seeking fulfilment of the promise? Let it, at least, introduce a UCC Bill and leave it to the machinations of parliamentary democracy, to be settled in due course,” read the PIL.

“An election manifesto is a window for voters to see through a political party’s governance agenda to make an informed decision. Voting is a transactional act. Once a vote is cast on the basis of the transactional value the voter sees in the party, a legal contract arguably comes into existence if the said party forms the ruling government,” the PIL stated.

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