New Delhi: Rajya Sabha MP and member of the national council of the Communist Party of India, Binoy Viswam, urged the Election Commission to make the rate at which parties place advertisements mandated by the poll body proportional to their income. The EC has made it mandatory to advertise the criminal history of candidates in the electoral fray.
In a letter to chief election commissioner Sunil Arora, the MP wrote that in keeping with the Supreme Court’s judgment of September 25, 2018, the Election Commission issued a notification on October 10 directing political parties to advertise the criminal antecedents of their candidates.
The order of the SC came in a case filed by the Public Interest Foundation against the Union of India. The matter was heard by a constitution bench comprising the then Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Rohinton Fali Nariman, A.M. Khanwilkar, D.Y. Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra.
What the SC directed
The constitution bench issued the following directions in the matter:
(i) Each contesting candidate shall fill up the form as provided by the Election Commission and the form must contain all the particulars as required therein.
(ii) It shall state, in bold letters, with regard to the criminal cases pending against the candidate.
(iii) If a candidate is contesting an election on the ticket of a particular party, he/she is required to inform the party about the criminal cases pending against him/her.
(iv) The concerned political party shall be obligated to put up on its website the aforesaid information pertaining to candidates having criminal antecedents.
(v) The candidate as well as the concerned political party shall issue a declaration in the widely circulated newspapers in the locality about the antecedents of the candidate and also give wide publicity in the electronic media. When we say wide publicity, we mean that the same shall be done at least thrice after filing of the nomination papers.
The issue of criminal cases is complex since it straddles the full range of offences from murder and rape at one extreme to cases that are of a political character. Kanhaiya Kumar, the CPI candidate from Begusarai, for example, is facing five criminal cases because of his activism as JNU Students’ Union president.
While welcoming the notification, Viswam wrote: “It will surely play a pivotal role in helping the citizens decide whom to vote for and that sort of transparency must be the bedrock of any good democratic nation.”
‘Notification has burdened parties with limited resources’
Viswam, however, pointed out that there is also a “disparate impact of this obligation.”
The CPI MP said, “The cost of such advertising, mainly in television channels, is expensive.” He added that considering that the party has to advertise three times in both newspapers and TV channels about the criminal antecedents of the candidates it may choose to field across the country, “the same may be unbearable for certain parties, like CPI, whose resources are limited.”
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In this regard, the MP stated that there is a huge difference between the incomes of various political parties. He said in the financial year 2017-18, BJP’s income was Rs 1,027.34 crore and that of the Congress was Rs 199.15 crore. In contrast, he said, CPI’s total income was only Rs 1.55 crore.
“The BJP’s total income constitutes nearly 80 percent of the combined income, both known and unknown, of seven national political parties (BJP, INC, BSP, NCP, AITC, CPI, CPI(M)). While such a party with seemingly unlimited resources may not be affected due to the high costs of advertising, other parties such as the CPI will be affected,” the MP reasoned.
EC urged to create slabs for advertisements rates
Viswam, therefore, urged the chief election commissioner to take his aspect into consideration and use the incomes of the parties, as disclosed in their Income Tax returns, to create slabs for charges that may be levied by different newspapers and channels for such advertising.
“Making the charges proportionate to the income of the party would ensure that one specific party is not unnecessarily burdened in the implementation of this welcome policy. It is requested that you may kindly issue requisite directions to the local newspapers and TV channels to charge political parties and their members as per the slabs created by you according to the income of the respective party,” he concluded.