New Delhi: Senior MPs in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday urged the Union Government to make election manifestos legally binding. During Zero Hour, RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha said that the importance of election manifestos is diminishing as political parties are releasing them just days ahead of elections. He said that wider consultation is required to make election manifestos legally binding.
"If I recollect the election manifestos of 1952, 1957 and 1962, all political parties, including the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the Socialist Party and the Congress Party used to enlist doable things in their election documents and a serious discussion used to be held in the central leadership before releasing it to the public," Jha said. "Now, in the election manifesto, the hatred, grudge and divisive thoughts and disrespectful comments are taking a centre stage in these declarations," he added.
Jha said that in 2013, Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sathasivam Bench had observed that if the dignity and the respect of the Indian democracy has to be kept intact, then these declarations have to be given a legal shape and the political parties should be made accountable. "We need to have wider consultations on developing a policy so that the ground realities and issues related to the core issues of the public take centre stage in the political discussion," added Jha.