Parties must be made to honour poll promises, says CJI

New Delhi: Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar said on Saturday that political parties must be made accountable for not fulfilling electoral promises made in their manifestos. And since the Indian legal system doesn’t provide for any penalty for promises not honoured, people have to step up and do it, he indicated.

Speaking in the presence of President Pranab Mukherjee, at a seminar titled “Economic Reforms with Reference to Electoral issues”, Justice Khehar said that political parties must not be allowed to get away with “brazen” excuses like lack of consensus amongst their members to justify non-fulfilment of their poll promises.  

“No consequence occurs whether promises are fulfilled or not… Even our legal system provides for no consequences to be suffered by political parties if promises made in the manifesto are not fulfilled. Uninformed citizenry, with a short-term memory forgets and the election manifesto becomes a mere piece of paper. For this political parties have to be made accountable,” the CJI said.

The CJI said that electoral politics in India centres around “mobilisation and politicisation” of social groups which are poor or disadvantaged and have long remained politically dominant. And yet, he said, none of the manifestos released by political parties during the 2014 general elections indicated any link between electoral reforms and the constitutional goal of ensuring economic-social justice to the marginalised section.

Instead, “Caste issues are projected in different ways to ensure a majority in each constituency.”

He said that ever since the marginalised sections have begun turning up in larger numbers to vote, it has led to an unprecedented volatility in the electoral outcome. This has forced political parties to seek new forms of political alignment, social engineering and support, he said.

Despite these changes in the electoral process, the non-fulfillment of poll promises never becomes an electoral issue, the CJI observed.

President Pranab Mukherjee, who was the chief guest, underlined the need for accountability of the elected representatives and said that all the political parties will have to develop a voluntary code of conduct for their working. He also mentioned that apart from the 1957 and 1984 general elections, no political party secured more than 50 percentage of votes in any parliamentary election which raised serious question on their accountability.  

Justice Dipak Misra, the next senior-most judge, said that “purchasing power has no room in elections” and a candidate must bear in mind that “contesting elections is not an investment”. The day a voter goes to vote without being tempted “would be a glorious day for democracy,” he said.