Voters need to be vigilant: HS Brahma

He advised people to elect sincere, honest representatives, who work for them and the country.

Brahma urged voters to be vigilant and monitor, review their performances so that their needs and aspirations don’t get neglected by the elected representatives.

He was speaking at the 11th Annual National Conference on Electoral and Political reforms organized by West Bengal Election Watch (WBEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), here on Saturday.

Chittotosh Mukherjee, President of WBEW and Ex-Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court and Swami Suparnanada Maharaj of Ramakrishna Mission (Golpark) were present on the occasion.

Brahma urged citizens to participate actively in elections and be vigilant so that influence of money and muscle power that create non-level playing field for candidates are identified and dealt during the period of election process itself, instead of waiting for the results of the elections.

He assured that in addition to uploading the affidavit filed by candidates on the ECI website, other mechanisms to authenticate the details are being thought off.

Responding to a query about many smaller registered parties, i.e. 1400 out of 1600, not participating in elections, Brahma said that efforts are being made to introduce regulations which will provide for action against such parties which don’t participate in specified number of elections (Assembly and Parliament) for 5 to 10 years.

He also said that UIDAI has already issued 85 crore Aadhaar cards and 100 per cent coverage is likely by August 2015 and once Aadhaar card details are mounted on the electoral rolls, the problem of bogus voter cards / duplicate cards will come to an end and voters can update their changed address and locate polling stations, online all over India, hopefully by August 2015.

Brahma also added that the Law Commission of India has made many recommendations to reform electoral system and some of the recent verdicts of Supreme Court and High Court has helped in resolving many problems related to elections in the country.

In his address, Chittotosh Mukherjee said like "KYC in Bank Account, we should also have KYC in elections which will give details about contesting candidates (Know Your Candidate)."