The Election Commission has taken serious exception to the government’s decision to revise various provisions in the three election-related bills that have been tabled in Parliament.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) and Ministry of Law and Justice had changed various provisions in the bills on election commission, voters’ list and political parties drafted by the Election Commission (EC).

But the ministries had changed key clauses of all the three bills before they were tabled in Parliament. According to the EC, the provisions that were kept in the draft bills were necessary to conduct free and fair elections and maintain transparency among the political parties. 

In its draft of the bill on election commission, the EC had provisioned that the EC should have the authority to determine the election date in consultation with the political parties. 

According to Election Commissioner Ila Sharma, the provision was made as the EC in most of the countries hold the authority to announce the date for elections. The House of Representatives Act 1991 also had the same provision. 

However, MoHA has revised the draft and replaced that provision with “the government will announce the election date”. “The ministries ‘can’ revise the language, but they are not authorised to change the entire provision,” Sharma told the Post.

In the same bill, the EC had proposed that the Prime Minister’s Office would be the commission’s line ministry, which is the norm for all other constitutional bodies. But this provision too has been withdrawn by MoHA which is the liaison ministry of the EC at present.

The EC has also objected to the government move of withdrawing a clause that called for de-registering the parties if they fail to submit their annual audit reports within a year. In its draft of the bill on political parties, the EC had proposed that “the parties that do not submit annual audit reports will be removed from the EC list”.

The current Election Commission Act provides for de-registration of political parties which do not submit annual audit report for three consecutive years. But the EC had proposed bringing down the period from three years to one year to maintain transparency and accountability of the parties. 

Similarly, the EC in its draft of bill on voters’ list had proposed that  the EC should be authorised to fix the date for voter registration. The government has changed this provision as well. 

The EC had sent five essential five bills—Local Election Procedural Act, Political Parties related Act, Election Commission Act, Election (Offence and Punishment Act) and Act on Voter List—to the government for necessary paper works so that they could be tabled in Parliament. 

Out of them, only three—Bill to Amend and Integrate Laws related to the Election Commission, Bill Related to Voters’ List and Bill to Amend and Integrate Laws Related to Political Parties—have been tabled in Parliament.