Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Damodar Rout on Sunday strongly supported the Central Information Commission’s (CIC) recent order to include political parties under the purview of the RTI Act and urged all political parties to stop blame game and, instead, serve people with a mission.
While participating in a debate on ‘Electoral and political reforms’ organsied by the National Election Watch (NEW) and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) here, Rout said, “In the contemporary society, political morale is fast decaying. Neither the ruling parties nor the opposition parties are engaging themselves in constructive ways for betterment of people and democracy.
Hence, electoral and political reforms are the need of the hour to strengthen political parties, thereby ensuring a sustainable democracy.”
BJP leader Ashok Sahoo, CPI leader Ramkrusha Panda and Pradesh Congress Committee vice-president Sivananda Ray too unanimously agreed to make provisions to monitor transparency and accountability of political parties.
The speakers also discussed over a Draft Bill titled as ‘The Political parties (Registration and Regulation of Affairs, etc.)-2011’ prepared by the ADR.
“Apart from others, we have focused on two important issues in the Draft Bill. One is the need for inner-party democracy which included a democratic process for electing or selecting party office-bearers and candidates for election. Some countries have also imposed term limits on the number of times a person can hold office.
The second issue is transparency and accountability in funding of political parties and elections,” said ADR chairman Trilochan Shastry, adding that the Draft Bill would ensure a more informed debate and even lead to the passage of a suitable legislation.
Among others, National Election Watch State unit chief Sahadev Sahoo, former DGP Amiya Bhusan Tripathy and Ranjan Kumar Mohanty participated in the debate.