Congress leader Manish Tewari claimed in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that the Election Commission has no legal basis to conduct Special Intensive Review (SIR) and the process should be stopped.
While initiating the discussion on election reforms in the House, he also said that by changing the Election Act of 2023, the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and the Chief Justice should be included in the selection committee of the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners, elections should again be conducted through ballot papers and the practice of sending cash to people’s accounts before the elections should be curbed.
The Lok Sabha member from Chandigarh said, “It is unfortunate that many people are feeling the need to question the impartiality of the Election Commission. He said, “The election law that was made in 2023 should be amended. Two more people should be added to the selection committee. The leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha and the Chief Justice should be included in it.
He said that if such a committee is formed, it will help in resolving the doubts in the minds of the people. The three-member selection committee under the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Service-Conditions and Tenure) Act, 2023 comprises the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and a Cabinet minister. Tiwari claimed, “SIR is being done in many states, but the Election Commission has no legal basis to conduct this exercise.” He said that the government should put on the table of the House in which constituencies there are irregularities and for what reasons SIR is being done.
He said, “The country has the right to know on what basis this SIR is being done.” Tiwari said that there is a need to close the SIR. He said that if something wrong has happened in the past then today’s mistake cannot be justified on the basis of that. The Congress leader said that the fundamental question of whether the Election Commission has the right to conduct SIR or not is not being discussed. Tiwari said, “It is unfortunate that this question was not considered in the judiciary.”
He said that the Commission should provide machine readable data related to the voter list. Raising the issue related to EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines), he said, “I am not saying that EVMs are being tampered with, but there is a concern among the people that EVMs can be tampered with.” The Congress leader stressed that either 100 per cent counting of VVPATs should be done or voting should be done again by ballot paper. He said the law should be amended to include a provision that states that exceed a certain limit on borrowing cannot transfer cash before elections.
Taking a dig at the government, Tiwari said, “You cannot win elections with the national exchequer, you cannot bankrupt democracy.” He said that in India, voting rights were given to all people at a time when in many major countries only a select few had the right to vote. Tiwari also said that the biggest electoral reform in independent India took place during the time of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi when the voting age was reduced from 21 years to 18 years. He said that the framers of the Constitution had said that different elections can be held at different times in the country, in such a situation there is no justification for ‘one country, one election’.
