Dr Naseem Zaidi gives inaugural address in 13th annual national conference on electoral and political reforms

Chandigarh, April 29, 2017: Dr Naseem Zaidi , CEC , India gave his inaugural address in the 13th annual national conference on electoral and political reforms organised by ADR in association with Panjab University.
Professor Arun K.Grover, VC, Panjab University welcomed the delegates from all over India including academics, lasers and social activists as well as the chief guest. Calling Panjab university as people's university he underlined the electoral components in the decision making bodies of the University since the colonial days. Dr Zaidi referred to several reforms measures undertaken by the election commission of India since his joining to EC in 2012. He mentioned the creation of election data management division in order to make the ECI website much more user friendly for citizens.
Dr Zaidi also referred to the toughening of the EC approach to electoral malpractices under his watch like countermanding the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu due to reports of bribing of the electorates. in this context he informed that the EC has been seeking more powers under the section 58 of people's representation act to enable the commission to even disqualify the candidates on the basis of charges of illegal activities like distributing cash for vote. He also said that the EC has been actively campaigning to create awareness among the voters about the need to be away from material inducement. He also said that the EC is now thinking of introducing a new clause in the candidate's affidavits to not only show their income but also the source of income so that IT department can take corrective measure. He also advocated that the parties as per the CIC, India ruling in 2013 should be brought under RTI. another point Dr Zaidi raised was that the corporate funding should be made transparent and also all the donations should be made accepted through cheque/draft or electronic transfer. He regretted that the xap obver the corporate donation which was earlier 7.5 % has been now removed. He also advocated that the candidates who are defaulters on account of not paying their public dues, occupying illegally public properties should be disqualified by law. He assured that under Article 324, the EC is determined to bring electoral reforms but it would need the support of the political parties and civil society. Most of the reform suggested by ECI were endorsed by the participant speakers including Manish Tewari, Sukhpal Khaira, Professor Arun Kumar, Sanjay Kumar, Prof Chhokar, among others. State Election Commissioner, Maharashtra, CEO Punjab and Maharashtra also participated. There was heated debate about the effectiveness of electoral bond as well as bringing down the limit of cash donation to 2000 only, the two measures announced by Arun Jaitely in his 2017 budget.