NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party has decided to give note on the clause distrusting the Election Commissioner’s power to fix a time frame for issuing identity cards, and the draft report ‘of Parliament’s Standing Committee on home Ministry related “matters, on the proposed Representation of the People (Second Amendment) bill.

A notice to this effect was served by the Bharatiya Janata Party members, Maj Gen (retd) Chowan ‘Chandra Khanduri and Mr.Guman Mal Lodha, at the closed-door meeting of the committee to give final touches on the draft, here, last week. ‘There was unanimity on other “clauses mentioned in the report. ‘The way was thus virtually paved for the passage of the proposed legislation in the coming Parliament session with the Congress and the Left parties backing it in totality.

The BJP members have objected to the recommendation in the craft to retain those provisions of the. Proposed Bill under which the Election Commission should obtain the prior approval of the government before using an order on identity cards. They said it was legally unsound. They agreed that the elections should not in any case be postponed but felt that if there were any practical difficulties in this regard, it was for the Government and the Election Commission to sort out between themselves.

‘The BJP spokesman, Grishan Lal ‘Sharma, said that his party’s view, ‘was that any attempt to subject the Election Commission to the whims of the Government was violative of the spirit of Article 324 of the Constitution. “The autonomy of an autonomous body cannot be curtailed,” he remarked. Sharma is a member of the Committee but could not attend its meeting as he was late in returning to the Capital from election campaign in other ‘States. He said that President’s notification in regard to the Lok Sabha elections did not reflect the will of the executive as the notification followed the recommendations of the Election Commission. At one stage, Jagannath Mishra (Congress) also opined that a word might go around that the Election Commission’s powers were being curtailed.

Article extracted from this publication >>  November 25, 1994