suggest and explain any five measures to reform political parties
Answers
Some measures taken by government to reform political parties have been:
a. Anti defection law, which states that if any sitting MLA or MP changes his party, he will lose his seat in the legislature.
b. It is mandatory now for every candidate to furnish all details related to the assets, criminal cases pending.
c. Election Commission has made it mandatory for parties to hold regular elections an file income tax.
d. Recent judgement by Supreme Court that disqualifies convicted MP's and MLA's who have sentenced to more than two years of imprisonment by the lower court and whose appeal against their conviction is pending,and is debarred from contesting elections is considered to be the landmark decision by the apex court to clean the system
Suggestions for reforms:
a. The financial accounts of the parties must be audited, this will decrease the role of private big business house donors.
b. State funding of political parties must be done to meet their election expenditure.
c. The accounts must be made available to public.
d. Parties must come under the ambit of Right to information to increase transparency in the system.
e. Common people must be encouraged to give donations to parties and such citizens must be exempted from income tax
f. Parties must encourage inner party democracy, have regular elections.
g. They must encourage participation of women,
Explanation:
i) The anti-defection law was introduced to curb the growing trend of elected representatives who changed political parties to become ministers or to get cash rewards.
ii) The affidavit requirement was an order passed by the Supreme Court as a measure to curb the challenge of money and muscle power.
iii) The third reform measure was made by the Election Commission where for all political parties it was mandatory to hold regular elections and also file their income tax returns.
Besides these, many suggestions are often made to reform political parties:
iv) It should be made mandatory for political parties to give a minimum number of tickets, about one-third, to women candidates. Similarly, there should be a quota for women in the decision-making bodies of the party.
v) There should be state funding of elections. The government should give parties money to support their election expenses. This support could be given in kind: petrol, paper, telephone etc. Or it could be given in cash on the basis of the votes secured by the party in the last election.