Major national and regional parties, including the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party, gave a miss to the Law Commission’s one-day discussion on electoral reforms. The meeting held here on Saturday was focusing on the methods to decriminalise politics.

In the six national parties, only CPI(M) and CPI attended the meeting. Biju Janata Dal was the only major regional party and was represented by MP Pinaki Mishra. Legal luminaries such as Soli Sorabji and TR Anthyarjuna attended the meeting along with Law Commission chairman Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and former chairman Justice BP Jeevan Reddy.

The Commission had started the process after the Supreme Court asked it to submit a report on whether the process of disqualification of an elected member should be upon conviction or upon framing of charges or filing of charge sheet and whether filing of false affidavit under Section 125 A of Representation of the People Act should be made a ground for disqualification. The Commission also wanted to know from the parties whether a provision needs to be inserted for evaluation of fitness of a candidate by an independent body.

The Left parties said conviction should remain the ground for disqualification. “The judicial and police systems in the country are not foolproof. If filing a case has been made the ground for disqualification, it could be used by Governments against political opponents,” said CPI(M) MP KN Balagopal, who attended the meeting on behalf of his party. Balagopal, however, supported the suggestion that those who file wrong affidavits and use money for campaign more than the limit set by the Election Commission should be punished. “Such practices should be treated as corruption,” he said in the meeting. The BJD supported the idea that a person should be disqualified from contesting elections on framing charges against him or her.

The CPI(M) condemned the absence of bigger parties from the meeting. “This was such an important meeting on making the system free of criminals. The absence of the Congress and BJP shows that they are not serious in making the system strong.” Balagopal said.

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