Owaisi Urges EC To Withdraw Election Freebies Proforma

AIMIM chief  and Hyderabad Member of Parliament Asaduddin Owaisi wrote a letter to the Election Commission (EC) requesting to take back the direction on electoral promises contending it doesn't fall under the commission's ambit. This comes on the back of EC taking the first step on October 4 asking political parties to furnish authentic information on the financial viability of the electoral promises. Moreover, the commission also released a standardised proforma for making election-related declarations.

The Election Commission is concerned with the electoral field and the aspect of the financial viability of the schemes is out of its scope, said Owaisi in the letter addressed to the country’s apex electoral body, “The ambit of the election commission’s powers under article 324 of the constitution are well defined. The commission is concerned with the superintendence, direction and control of “... all elections to Parliament and to the legislature of every state…”

Therefore, the commission’s wide powers are limited to the electoral field alone. It is not within the ambit of the election commission’s powers to be concerned with the financial viability or fiscal health of the government.”

Building upon his arguments further,



he stated the nature of the content of the proforma amounts to trespassing the constitutional mandate the commission has been given, “The very nature of the headings of the proforma (quantification, extent, expanse, resource raising plan, etc) clearly indicates that the election commission is occupying the policy making and legislative field, which it is not constitutionally competent to do.”

Electoral promises are subject to wrongly influencing the voters in more ways than one, is the mistaken belief of the election commission, said Owaisi in the letter. “The commission is under the erroneous belief that, somehow, electoral promises are connected to fear or allurement in the electoral process,” and citing the supremacy of the voter in the electoral process, he further added, “Electoral process presumes that voters are supreme. They cannot be equated to emotional children who can be swayed by promises.”

It should be left to the voters to decide on who will make the best use of the public monetary resources, “It is the voters who will decide who is competent to raise and spend public finances. It is ultimately voters and not any public regulatory body that must hold political parties to account,” Owaisi stated.