New Delhi, August 31
Voices seeking fairness in the upcoming polls to elect the new Congress president grew louder on Wednesday, with party leaders Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor and Karti Chidambaram demanding that electoral rolls be made public to ensure transparency in the process.
Congress MP and G-23 leader Tewari raised objections to the party not making public the names of electors for the party president poll, and said it must be published on the AICC website to ensure transparency.
He also asked why anyone seeking to contest the Congress president’s election should go to the PCC office to get the electoral roll as this does not even happen in a club election.
“With great respect Madhusudan Mistry ji How can there be a fair and free election without a publicly available electoral roll? Essence of a fair and free process is names and addresses of electors must be published on the Congress website in a transparent manner,” Tewari said in a series of tweets.
He said Mistry, who is the chairman of the Congress’ central election authority is quoted as saying “The list is not made public but if a member of our party wants to check, they can check at the PCC office. And, of course, it will be given to the candidates once they file their nomination papers”.
Congress MP Tharoor, who has expressed his intent to contest the party’s presidential election, agreed with Tewari, and said everybody should know who can nominate and who can vote.
“Certainly, I think it’s important that everybody should have transparency on the electoral rolls. If that’s what Manish has asked for, then I’m sure that it’s a principle that everybody would agree. Everybody should know who can nominate and who can vote. There is nothing wrong with that,” Tewari said at a function in Thiruvananthapuram, while concurring with Tewari.
Another Congress leader and MP Karti Chidambaram supported his view, saying every election requires a well-defined Electoral College.
He also said “reformists are jot rebels”.
“Every election needs a well-defined and clear electoral college. The process of forming the Electoral College must also be clear, well defined and transparent. An ad hoc electoral college is no electoral college,” he said on Twitter.
He also supported the idea of having primaries, saying, “we must have primaries in every constituency, but for that we need a defined and transparent members list. Today we claim we have membership numbers which no one has ever verified.” Responding to a query on Twitter, he asked, “So anybody who wants to reform the party must resign? Only blind followers are allowed to be in the party?” Tewari said the the CWC has announced the schedule of the Congress president’s election not to 28 Pradesh Congress Committees (PCC’s) and eight territorial Congress Committees (TCC’s).
“Why should someone have to go to every PCC office in the country to find out who the electors are,” he asked.
“This does not happen in a club election also with great respect. In interests of fairness and transparency I urge your gods self to publish the entire list of electors on Congress website,” the Punjab MP said.
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