New Delhi: Chief Election Commissioner, Dr SY Qureshi speaks to NDTV's Sreenivasan Jain on the challenges from a corrupt electoral system and that it is ready to conduct internal party elections.

Sreenivasan Jain: The anti-corruption movement has now signaled a new target - Electoral Reforms, which in simple language means an attempt to clean up a political system that is a awash with black money and a criminalized culture. But this could prove to be a greater challenge than the Lokpal Bill. Because it involves political parties attempting to self-correct and that as we know is not an easy thing.

Joining me today is someone who is spear heading attempts towards electoral reforms and that's the Chief Election Commissioner Dr. Qureshi. Thank you very much indeed sir for joining us. Just before we get into the specifics I think it's important for people to understand how critical electoral reforms are and the way in which our electoral systems have got corrupted. In the overall debate over corruption some feel that this, in fact, is the root cause of all corruption.

SY Qureshi: Absolutely. You know the elections have become the biggest source of corruption because the money that you spend at the time of election is much beyond the legally prescribed limit. Now obviously the candidates who win are in a hurry to get that money back, with an interest probably, and that is how corruption begins. So the logic of having a higher ceiling in the law is that it should be over money power. So we all feel, in fact all political parties at different times have expressed their concern that money power is getting out of control. But the only problem is that it has become a competitive phenomenon. If one party spends a lot of money, then the other person also has to spend a lot of money. Whether it is money or criminals, both are competitive phenomena. If a criminal is put up as a candidate by one party the other party feels very disadvantaged. They feel they have no chance until a bigger dada is put up against them.

Sreenivasan Jain: Yes they use the expression winnability as a euphemism, and under this umbrella of winnability all these acts are perpetrated. I will come to the money part in a bit but want to first concentrate on the criminal aspect of it. You said that parties talk about being willing to make changes that they want to fix these things, but in reality very little happens. Now for the first time it seems like the Government has decided that they want to try and take some steps to fight corruption and criminalization that they are planning to bring in some reforms. Some would argue that they are doing this in a peaceful way. They are just bringing in one aspect of the reforms first, which is that under the existing laws you are barred from fighting elections only if you are convicted. But now what they are saying is that even if you are charge-sheeted, or if charges have been framed against you in a number of what are classified as heinous crimes then you will be barred...

SY Qureshi: Yes

Sreenivasan Jain: Do you feel that that is an important step? SY Qureshi: I think this is the most important of all other reforms that we've been talking about. Because we know of people accused of very serious crimes, with charges pending against them in crimes such as rape, dacoity, murder, kidnapping, being in politics. The proceedings go on for 30 years and in the meantime he becomes the minister, he becomes powerful, he becomes the government... and he may be exonerated. But the point is that..

Sreenivasan Jain: But now even if these charges are against him he will be barred.

SY Qureshi: Yes. You know the response that we get from all of the political parties. They all oppose our reform proposal by the way. And the reason they gave me is that the law of the land states that everybody is innocent until proven guilty. Fair enough. And that on the eve of the election false charges may be forced on them. True enough. But the question has been debated by jurists and legal experts. 12 years ago a law commission, which has all the jurists, recommended a way out, which was that at least those cases where the court of law has framed the charges should be considered. You may not believe an FIR but a court of law is independent. At the time of framing of charges there is application of judicial mind.

Sreenivasan Jain: Yes, so the fact that they have framed a case means there has been application of judicial mind and that there may be some substance to the charges

SY Qureshi: Yes. Also, I would like to ask a counter question with regards to the second point that everybody is innocent unless proven guilty. There are over 4 lakh prisoners in prisons around India today. About 2 lakh 68 thousand are still to be convicted. They are under-trial, but they are innocent. Now these innocents are losing four of their fundamental rights - right to liberty, freedom of movement, freedom of occupation and right to dignity. If you can take away four fundamental rights of an under-trial then what is the big deal about the candidates? Contesting an election is not even a fundamental right.

Sreenivasan Jain: Also there has been another safeguard that's been talked about. In the event that these people do decide to fight the elections then there's a method by which their cases can be speeded up and a verdict can be delivered within a stipulated period of time.

SY Qureshi: Well that is an alternative if it can be ensured. But we know from experience that it is easier said than done and that that doesn't happen. Election petitions are also supposed to be deposed by the High Court within one year. But except for the Kerala High Court no other court has been able to dispose a case even in four years in some cases.

Sreenivasan Jain: So what you are saying is that as far as the concerns of these political parties, the ones that they have raised, they're saying that they could face charges framed against them falsely to implicate them if you were to bring this in. You are saying firstly that this is something which the Law Commission and senior jurists have considered, and they still feel this is important and you are also saying that fighting election is not a fundamental right so they shouldn't be so agitated about it given that a large amount of under-trials are already facing this. But the other thing that people always raise is that the nature of the offence which debar you and whether, political offences and offences of that nature should be included. But in these cases you have clearly zeroed-in and identified only serious offences. These are waging war against the nation, a conspiracy to wage war, murder, rape, kidnapping, dacoity, and any statement that provokes enmity between communities. Only those charged with those particular sections will be debarred.

SY Qureshi: We are not saying that you go out for every case. We have only included serious offences, whose which will lead to imprisonment of 5 years or more. And we have also provided a third safety clause, which is that cases should have been filed at least six months before the elections. So if it's a false case then the damage is undone.

Sreenivasan Jain: But this is a concern that will have to be addressed somewhere down the line. This fear that the false cases will be foisted is something one keeps hearing again and again from political parties, we know that does happen. Some mechanism will have to found around that.

SY Qureshi: Yes. That is for the jurists to discuss and find a way out of. I think our present formulation recommended by our Law Commission and Election Commission for years...

Sreenivasan Jain: And which the present Government seems pretty clear to go ahead with...

SY Qureshi: Yes and in fact I'm very happy that the Government has decided to go ahead with this reform as a starting point. If they can take it through then it will be a great achievement.

Sreenivasan Jain: The other big area for reform is money power and the vast amount of black money that's getting poured into these elections. Now some attempts at reform have happened, not thanks to political parties but activism of either the Election Commission or groups that are working outside the system. This activism has caused the parties to file their income tax returns. They now have to file affidavits, demonstrating how much they have spent in terms of elections. They make for fascinating reading and a lot of them are available on your website. You find that political parties are, and I am sorry to use this term, lying through their teeth. These affidavits have false information. They claim that they only spent 50% of their election expenses. So how do you then check this money power problem?

SY Qureshi: You have put your finger on a very important point, money power. Virtually all politicians start their political carrier or term on a falsehood in terms of the IT return that they file. Most of them are false. And we know that crores are spent and they keep telling us, in our drawing rooms they tell us, but we must have evidence. On record they only show a few lakhs. For instance recently when 5 states went to polls - Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, Pondicherry and West Bengal, we analyzed the returns that they filed. Earlier there was a demand that our ceiling was unrealistic and that we should make it realistic or remove it all together.

Sreenivasan Jain: Yes, it was revised briefly.

SY Qureshi: Yes we revised it from Rs. 10 lakh to Rs. 16 lakh to take care of inflation.

Sreenivasan Jain: And for Lok Sabha it has gone up to Rs. 40 lakh from 25lakh.

SY Qureshi: That's right. So then we thought that we will give them more levy, more money to spend, Rs. 16 lakh. But the average return that we have is 50%. Now if someone is going to talk about rationalizing the ceiling we are not going to make it Rs. 60 lakh from Rs. 16 lakh. We would rather make it Rs. 8 lakh from Rs. 16 lakh if that is what you are actually spending. So what are you quarrelling with?

Sreenivasan Jain: So what does one do? Even if one tries these attempts at transparency political parties are not honest about it. What options do we have?

SY Qureshi: We have the enforcement, we will have to tighten it. We did not have the infrastructure in the Election Commission to monitor on a permanent basis. We would deploy election expenditure observers during elections. For 2 to 3 weeks they would all go back. But we have created a new division and we have got senior officers from income tax service. We have regular contact with the Central Board of Direct Taxes so that we can monitor the situation and keep an eye on it throughout the year. Then we came up with new expenditure guidelines which we first tried in Bihar and fine tune them on the basis of the Bihar experience for the 5 states. They worked rather well, but then it made us even more unpopular with the political parties because we came down heavily on them. The way we seized money left, right and centre, Rs. 73crore in 5 states, Rs. 60 crore in just one state alone. And that shows the magnitude. For every crore that we seized we must have checked 40 to 50 because we had that kind of control but since that mush money was in circulation much more must have gone through..

Sreenivasan Jain: so in a way you are trying to your best to be vigilant, tough and try and police elections as they are happening.. But at the end of the day there's only so much you can do and ultimately political parties will have to self-correct..

SY Qureshi: Yes and I see a ray of hope in what we saw in Kerala. Form Tamil Nadu we went to Kerala. In Tamil Nadu every party without exception talked about the money problem. We went to Kerala and we asked what is the state of money problem they said what money problem - we have no money problem at all. We were surprised we asked them how come, you are in the same zone you are next to Tamil Nadu and you probably may have more money, petro dollars included maybe. They said the voters of Kerala are very smart they don't go by money considerations so why waste money? If that kind of situation can be developed and we feel if we can use voter education..

Sreenivasan Jain: That's very important. I think to create a culture almost an antipathy towards bribed as a voter is important. But what about political parties themselves? Shouldn't they also self-correct?

SY Qureshi: Absolutely they should self-correct but the thing is we keep talking about self-correction and it's easier said than done. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen, if somebody takes the lead for instance, there was one important leader who announced two years ago that criminals will not be given ticket for instance, we were very happy. Now we will see what happens in the election. Similarly if some party can take the initiative that people with any dubious record will not be allowed, somebody has to make a beginning but as you said that winnability becomes the prime consideration.

Sreenivasan Jain: And how tough can you get on all these different counts when you find political parties not keeping or at least forget the promises but at least the guidelines which you've led out when you talk of filing your expenditure being honest about that, or your income tax returns and all those things. You can take strict actions against them if they've found to have lied or if they've found to have falsified records.

SY Qureshi: Yes, for exceeding their expenditure ceiling, it's a corrupt practice. They'll lose their seat.

Sreenivasan Jain: But here they are not exceeding, at least according to their own data under spending. Is there anything you can do about that? Because clearly as you said those are false accounts, false records.

SY Qureshi: Among our regulations, there is a building mechanism there. They are trying to under report their activities which they undertake for campaigning. We have started maintaining shadow accounts. We try to video graph everything that is happening on the ground for instance in 14 days of campaign period they have to report expenditure 3 times. When they come with their report and say that they have held 3 public meetings, each costing Rs. 5000, we have video evidence available, we show them the mirror. Look this meeting could not have cost you Rs. 5000; this might have cost you Rs. 2 lakh. So when we confronted them with that kind of evidence they admitted and immediately they added to the account. But that was possible because they could still correct those accounts. Suppose we discover something later after the results have been announced, then of course it becomes a matter of the long....

Sreenivasan Jain: Did you find any anomalies during these recent elections in terms of the gap between what they were claiming and what they were spending and were you able to take action?

SY Qureshi: Enormous, and that is when we confronted them and they immediately corrected the account.

Sreenivasan Jain: Okay. So that is possible.

SY Qureshi: Even now 50% of the sealing was reported as the actual expenditure . we are collecting evidence because they file their returns in due course, within 30 days of the election and we are trying to analyze if we can still catch some discrepancies, then we'll take action.

Sreenivasan Jain: Dr. Qureshi, in conclusion I want to ask you that some believe the most deepest and most significant aspect of electoral reform is parties practicing inner party democracy which is once again not exactly mouthing platitude for the sake of it but following the norms that they themselves have led down in their own constitutions which used to have regular elections to have all office bearers elected by the grass roots from top to bottom, to ensure that there is transparency in the selection of candidates. Now again we know that just simply doesn't happen. But do you believe that it is the most critical area of electoral reform. And is that an area which again should fall under the purview of the election commission.

SY Qureshi: In a way it does because the condition of their registration include this clause in their own constitution that number one they'll uphold the constitution of India and they'll abide by the principal of secularism, democracy. Now if they abide by democracy, there has to be an inner-party democracy...

Sreenivasan Jain: This at the moment there isn't at all. I mean barring one or two honorable exceptions as a rule one doesn't see that in any party.

SY Qureshi: they are supposed to conduct a periodic election, report the new office bearers to us and sometimes they ask for some relaxation for the reasons that they can explain and we have been allowing that to happen and by and large how genuine those elections were, I cannot comment on but they have been filing.

Sreenivasan Jain: Dr. Qureshi we all know how elections are conducted in political parties, we know how leaders are elected. Even going through some of the records, they filed on your own website, I was reading them, and it makes so fascinating reading in election after election, party after party it says chosen either through consensus or through election consensus. In every case its consensus, it's a polite way of saying we all know who the boss is, no one stands against that person; its very much a one man or one woman party situation. In that event, as you said, you don't know how these elections are conducted, do you believe that even in internal elections of political parties should be monitored by the election commission?

SY Qureshi: It's a suggestion worth considering because at least it'll create credibility in public mind that the elections are fair. Some of it, I believe were made by a couple of political parties when they tried to engage ex-election commission officials...

Sreenivasan Jain: The youth congress elections are monitored by a group of former election commissioners like Mr. Lyngdoh and so on.

SY Qureshi: Obviously Mr. Lyngdoh and his group is involved in monitoring this election, I would certify them as free and fair. Because these people have proven....

Sreenivasan Jain: But again that gives political parties a scope for making these decisions on a voluntary basis. Some would argue that to bring in to the bouquet of reforms, the law which says that all internal elections must be monitored by the election commissioner.

SY Qureshi: Well, if that happens, it'll be very good, good for the credibility of our democracy, that is a call that Parliament has to take.

Sreenivasan Jain: But that's a challenge that the EC if that was to be accepted, you would be happy to take up that challenge?

SY Qureshi: For us to conduct the party election is a child's play because we conduct the biggest elections, if I tell you the size of our election, its mind boggling. You know, we have more voters than all 50 countries of Europe and all 20 countries of South and Central America put together.

Sreenivasan Jain: It's always been my heartfelt belief that it's a miracle and it's something that we are extremely proud of, one of the most remarkable aspect of our democracy. But I'm saying that this is something that as you said that if it was to be considered by the govt., passed by parliament, then even this aspect of the functioning of political parties could come under the election commission's preview.

SY Qureshi: It'll be very, very healthy for Indian democracy, you know while we feel that we are a rotten nation, corrupt and all that, I don't feel that all is negative about our country. The way people line up to Election Commission of India to see what magic we have, how vibrant our democracy is, how wonderful our elections are. Right now, today in this building, there is a team from Nigeria with 5 of their commissioners here to study and in that context when whole world looks upon India as a benchmark democracy, these corrections if they can happen they'll really enhance the prestige of the country worldwide.

Sreenivasan Jain: Let's be realistic Dr. Qureshi, will political parties will ever agree to any of this or are we just talking in Utopia.

SY Qureshi: I rather keep saying that the level playing field is the main consideration and which is why the competition began. they want level playing field, some we could do with enforcement, some can be done voluntarily, our effort will be as much as possible to be voluntary by self-regulation but wherever we feel it's not feasible then we have to come up with enforcement and whatever laws that we have, we are using to the fullest but sometimes people accuse of we being toothless, now that is where we need teeth and the teeth has to be given to us by parliament only. We hope that time has come, it's a defining moment in India, and this is the time when politicians, our leaders should come up with a formula which will take care of these problems once and for all.

Sreenivasan Jain: Two last things I want to end on which have become somewhat contentious in terms of electoral reforms, one is this business of right to recall. Do you think it's necessary?

SY Qureshi: Right to recall to my mind and to our considered view on the EC is not feasible. For a country of India size, it'll be alright it may be alright for a municipal election or a panchayat, that you get together 50 signatures. Now 50,000 people for instance, if they were to say that Vasu's election was not good and he didn't perform, how do we go about verifying those signatures and then conducting the election and how many election shall we have. Every now and then when we have election in phases, we are accused of a prolonging, that election people are suffering from election fatigue.

Sreenivasan Jain: Okay. So on right to recall you're saying that serious logistical considerations which make it impractical in a country as the size of India, the other one is state funding of elections. That's something which political parties are all clambering for.

SY Qureshi: No but let me first deal with the first question itself. We have a very positive solution also to offer. Right to recall probably the need arises when you feel the candidate you chose turn out to be a big fraud. You just hate him. If in the first place the quality of the candidate can improve and we feel that voter education plays a lot of role. We have a realistic situation in India where in certain constituencies there are only 20%, 30% people vote. Now 30 % people, particularly in urban areas, in the first place they don't go out to vote and then they are critical of their representatives. In their drawing room, they criticize the politicians and the govt. They have no business, no moral right to talk about corruption and politics when you have not...

Sreenivasan Jain: Gone out and cast your vote. I couldn't agree with you more.

SY Qureshi: Taking it further in the recent elections where turnout was 80-84%, obviously people will be more representative of the people. So in the first place some cleaning can happen as we seek to do through electoral reform, I think the need for right to recall will be obviated.

Sreenivasan Jain: Second point, state funding of elections, most political parties, politicians if you ask them want it, you're against it, why?

SY Qureshi: We have had meeting with political parties in the past, not that most of them want it, some want, and some oppose it. Some may have been opposing it. But we find, more and more coming in favor of it, we are totally opposed to it, the simple reason that it is not the white money that we are after, it is the black money. Now Rs. 16 lakh is the sealing, state funding will go to the extent of all Rs. 16 lakh, I underwrite all your expenses to the extent of Rs. 16 lakh but I'm not going to support you for your Rs. 5 crore which you're planning to spend in black money, how will we check it. So that is the issue.

eenivasan Jain: And that comes back what a lot of these reports have always said like the Indrajit Dutta Committee report that says that while it may recommend state funding, it's only on basis of the fact that political parties practice inner party democracy, there is financial transparency, only then can you have it. You can't place the cart before the horse.Dr. Qureshi thank you very much indeed for joining us and speaking so candidly is now going to become the next big area of national debate on corruption. Thanks very much indeed Sir.