Clarification in the matter of registration of a political party (YSR Congress Party) under section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951

NIRVACHAN SADAN, ASHOKA ROAD, NEW DELHI – 110001

No.ECI/PN/25/2010                                                            Dated:9th July, 2010

Subject: Clarification in the matter of registration of a political party (YSR Congress Party) under section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

Attention of the Commission has been drawn to reports in some section of media that a new party by the name of ‘YSR Congress Party’ has filed an application with the Commission for its registration as a political party. It is clarified that an application in the name of ‘YSR Congress Party’ for its registration under section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 by one Shri Mahaboob Basha was received in the Commission on 13.11.2009. Shri Mahaboob Basha is mentioned as the president of the proposed party and the address of the proposed party is D.No.7/2(A), Chila Kala, Bavi Street, Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh – 516001. According to the application the party (association) was formed on 18.09.2009. Registration as a political party is granted under section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. As per sub-section 2(b) of aforesaid section 29A, the application shall be made within 30 days next following the date of formation of the association or body.

Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has been derecognized as a national party by the Election Commission, a decision that comes ahead of the Assembly polls in Bihar. Five other parties also lost their recognition as a State party.

Election Commission sources said on Friday that while the parties may retain their symbol, they would lose facilities like utilizing All India Radio and Doordarshan for poll-eve broadcasts and free copies of electoral rolls. The RJD which is a recognised party in Bihar, Jharkhand, Manipur and Nagaland lost its national party recognition following its poor showing in Jharkhand where the party has been derecognized.

TRS candidates emerged victorious in eleven of the twelve assembly constituencies in Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh where the by-polls were held recently and the BJP retained the lone seat held by it.

The TRS nominees won from the five assembly constituencies whose results were announced in the early hours Saturday. In Huzurabad, TRS candidate E Rajendra defeated his nearest TDP rival by a margin of 55,360 votes. In Koreatla, TRS candidate K Vidyasagar Rao won by a margin of 45,895 votes against his Congress rival J Ratnakar Rao.

The  three-member Election Commission and the technical experts committee of the Election Commission have been interacting with various political parties on  the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

In a defiant mood , son of  late Chief minister Y S Rajashekhar Reddy , Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is scheduled to start his Odarpu yatra ( a tour aimed at consoling the families of those who lost  their lives as they could not bear the news of the tragic demise of YSR ) in few hours of time. Quite uncharacteristic of Congress culture, YS Jagan who himself a member of Loksabha from Cuddapah publicly stated that Sonia Gandhi was not in favour of his yatra. In an open letter to people released yesterday, Jagan also revealed that Sonia Gandhi suggested him to hold a meeting with the families of the deceased at one place and extend economic help. Jagan did not like the idea. Daring a possible action by the high command, Jagan, determined to inherit the legacy of his charismatic father, is all prepared for a show down. Unless a last minute rapprochement is worked out between Jagan and Congress high command, the congressmen in the state have to face an acid test to choose between Jagan and the party.

THE majority of the Indian population is achieving a remarkable feat according to World Bank and many home-grown economists.

They are eating less and less – that is not disputed. In fact, as we will see, the Indian level of consumption has reached that of the least developed countries.  But not only is poverty declining even though Indians are eating less and less, the poor are also shining, according to a recent paper published by two World Bank economists.

The battle lines are drawn in Telangana once again as the Congress and the Telugu Desam party decided to contest the by-elections necessitated by the resignation of 12 legislators on the Telangana issue. Now, the curiosity is only on two questions .What will be the electoral out come. What will be the impact of such an out come. The often asked question is what the TRS gained by forcing elections again and again .

The critics point out to the fact that TRS lost its strength in every elections it forced on the electorate. It is true numerically. The TRS supremo won by a land mark margin when he first resigned and contested from the karimnagar Loksabha seat. This was then projected as the triumph of Telangana cause.  But, the same KCR had to struggle to scrape through the next time.  Similarly, the TRS made significant wins in the early years of its inception when elections were held to local bodies. But, in the 2004 Assembly elections, its performance was relatively weaker when compared to the Congress with which it had electoral understanding. Subsequently, in the by-elections held in the wake of the resignation of TRS MLAs, it could not retain majority of its sitting seats. The poor performance of TRS was drubbed as weakening of Telangana sentiment. But, there is yet another facet to this result. The TRS won 16 seats with the support of Congress in 2004 polls and won six seats on its own facing both the Congress and the TDP.

The United Progressive Alliance government has completed one year of its second term. Looking back at its track record, any perceptible observer would simply notice the striking difference in the policies of first and second editions of UPA government.  Of course, there exists a clear difference in the political character of these two editions of UPA. The first UPA government was functioning with the external support from the Left parties. While the second edition of UPA has an increased influence of Congress party.

The UPA government came back to power in 2009 against a backdrop of unprecedented global financial recession and its adverse impact on Indian economy. Infact, the deleterious effects of global recession were minimized due to breaks applied by the Left to the reformist agenda of Congress led UPA. Interestingly, the Congress led UPA which chided the Left for its resistance to reforms is now claiming credit for the minimizing the adverse impact of recession.

THE UPA government is completing one year of its tenure on May 22. Unlike the first UPA government, its second edition did not spell out a common minimum programme. Instead, the Congress-led government began by reiterating its commitment to pursue the neo-liberal agenda. It announced that it would take up those policy measures which it could not push through in its first term in office. The government also promised to bring in some welfare measures for the aam aadmi. On foreign policy, the government stated that it would adhere to the path taken by the first UPA government of aligning India’s foreign policy in tune with the strategic alliance with the United States of America.

The one-year of the UPA government has been notable for the following:

The roll back of several welfare schemes is raising a political storm in Andhra Pradesh. The opposition is obviously up in arms. The Jagan lobby of course sees it as an opportunity to corner Rosaiah government. The congress government is therefore incurring the wrath of people. But, behind this political spectacle, the hard economic facts are ignored by many.  The official statistics speak volumes of the impact of recession on the state economy. Though, the profligacy of populist government did contribute to the present mess, the fiscal stress caused by the recession is loud and clear. Added to this, the natural calamities, the uncertain political climate have further compounded the problem for Rosaiah government. Even if Rajashekhar Reddy was alive, this situation would have been unavoidable.

The Election Commission’s statistical reports reveal that as far as representation of Muslim women in the Lok Sabha is concerned, there have never been more than three elected representatives in a House. As in the 15th Lok Sabha, there were three women members in the sixth and the eighth Lok Sabhas. In six Lok Sabhas (first, fourth, fifth, ninth, 10th and 12th), there was no Muslim woman member at all. Of the 549 women elected to the Lok Sabha since independence, only 18 have been Muslims.

Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist in 26/11 mumbai attack, was on May 3^rd convicted by a special court in Mumbai.  The Mumbai attacks saw 166 people dead.

Over 17 months after he and nine other perpetrators unleashed death and devastation on the financial nerve centre of the country, special anti-terror court judge M L Tahaliyani convicted Kasab for the carnage.

Kasab, who hails from Faridkot in Pakistan, now faces the prospect of death penalty.

In the aftermath of the horrific terrorist attack in Mumbai, it is only to be expected that a raging debate has erupted about national security and possible lapses. However, little light has been shed on systemic changes that are clearly required.Much of the debate has been poorly informed and, especially on TV, often clouded by emotional responses. Unfounded rumours, unverified gossip or inspired leaks from different arms of government seeking to blame each other have not helped. Some of the desire for punitive action against the perpetrators and their sponsors may be understandable, but such attitudes are not conducive to the desired goal, namely a thoroughgoing reform of the security apparatus to prevent further such disasters.

The Ram Pradhan committee, that probed the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, said the administration failed to act on repeated intelligence inputs on possibility of a strike on the Metropolis and the top brass of the police department had failed to provide visible leadership during the crisis, even as it criticised the system of handling ‘alerts’.

Professor Madabhushi Sridhar

Director, Center for Media Law Studies & Policy

NALSAR University of Law Hyderabad

I. Introduction: The Fall

1. Unethical Mixing: ‘Facts are sacred and comment is free’ is the basic norm of journalism. This is reinterpreted as ‘news is sacred and views are free’. But the situation is changed to: ‘false news is for a price and the views are free’[1].  The media, precisely regional media in Andhra Pradesh was involved in most unethical ‘news selling’ activity for exchange of unaccounted money, with no receipt, from contesting candidates irrespective of newspaper’s known lenience towards a political party. It was not even news selling but misrepresentation to voters for consideration. The Journalists organizations criticized this as blatant abuse of freedom of speech and expression to camouflage advertisement as news and in the process they were violating the norms under Indian Penal Code, Income Tax Act, and Representation of People Act, 1951.

Lenin’s classic against “Leftwing” deviation (Leftwing Communism An Infantile Disorder) also state: “Certainly, without a revolutionary mood among the masses, and without conditions facilitating the growth of this mood, revolutionary tactics will never develop into action. In Russia,however, lengthy, painful and sanguinary experience has taught us the truth that revolutionary tactics cannot be built on a revolutionary mood alone. Tactics must be based on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of all the class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it, and of all states the world over) as well as of the experience of revolutionary movements. It is very easy to show one’s “revolutionary” temper merely by hurling abuse at parliamentary opportunism, or merely by repudiating participation in parliaments; its very ease, however, cannot turn this into a solution of a difficult, a very difficult, problem.”

Widespread violence by the Maoists in the recent period and their
characterization as the “biggest internal security threat” by the Union Government has brought the issue of “Leftwing” extremism to the fore.

According to the Union Home Ministry, 3338 persons have died in 7806 incidents involving naxalite violence from 2004 to 2008. 580 persons have died in 1405 incidents spread across 11 states, till August, 2009. The Union Government has launched a security offensive against the Maoists along with the concerned state governments in the Maoist infested areas. While extremist violence needs to be dealt with firm administrative steps, a security centric approach towards the Maoist violence would fail to end the problem. The Maoists need to be ideologically confronted and politically exposed and isolated. The socio-economic backwardness, especially in the Maoist infested areas also need to be addressed.

Marking the fulfillment of a decades-long goal of the Democratic party, the US House of Representatives passed the sweeping health care reform package, giving a political victory to President Barack Obama who had staked his presidency on the passage of this bill.

The 2009 elections imposed on the Left the worst ever electoral debacle in the recent past. But over coming these reverses, the left is once again on the struggle path. From price rise to women’s reservations, the left is fighting in the streets. The left is going to face the biggest ever electoral challenge in few months from now. Will these struggles infuse much needed electoral strength   in the left. Besides struggles the left has to seriously introspect and embark upon course correction where ever necessary.

Eminent historian Eric Hobsbawm Said  that the setback suffered by the left in the parliament election is temporary and recoverable and the Bengal is one of the places in India where the Communists have mass support.

Rajya Sabha passes Women’s Reservation Bill  given women 1/3^rd seats in parliament and State Legislatures. The bill is passed by 186 votes in support and only one vote against the bill. This is the first step towards law. The bill has to be passed by Loksabha by 2/3^rd majority. It should also be passed by atleast 14 State Assemblies.