Women’s quota in parties, EC to impose inner-party democracy: Experts to ONOE panel

A group of experts has advocated reservation for women in organisations of political parties and for empowering the Election Commission to oversee the working of inner-party democracy among their suggestions to the parliamentary committee scrutinising the simultaneous election bills.

The experts, including former BJP MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, who has been associated with various think tanks, appeared before the panel on 12 August, Monday, and extended their complete support to the concept of "one nation, one election".

Claiming that simultaneous elections will prove to be the "mother of all reforms", they said several other democratic reforms are much needed and submitted their "Charter of Suggestions for Democratic Reforms" to the panel headed by BJP MP P.P. Chaudhary.

"All political parties could be encouraged to provide a quota for women in their party organisations," they said, citing it as one of several measures needed to prepare women to take full advantage of the reservation in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.

Besides Sahasrabuddhe, other experts on the panel are G. Gopal Reddy, Miranda House's governing body chairperson; Sushma Yadava, former pro vice chancellor, Central University of Haryana; Sheila Rai, general secretary of the Rashtriya Samaj Vigyan Parishad; and Nani Gopal Mahanta, professor in the department of political science and director, Centre for South East Asia, Gauhati University.

In their submission, they said steps are needed to make male politicians more sensitive to gender justice-related issues, and called for exploring the possibility of state governments mandating at least 30 per cent quota for women in "all elected bodies in all sectors", such as cooperative societies, housing bodies, university senates and management councils.

Proposing poll campaign reforms as well, they recommended mandatory publication of a manifesto by contesting parties, followed by a compulsory 'action taken' report (ATR). Each contesting candidate should also bring out a manifesto and subsequent ATR, they suggested.

Doordarshan as well as private TV channels should be mandated to telecast campaign speeches of party leaders from every state, they said in their suggestion to reduce campaign expenditure.

Authorities should be asked to reserve public grounds to be allocated to parties by turn for campaigning through a lottery system, they added.