Ralegan Siddhi
Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare has called for large-scale electoral reforms in the country to remove poll-related malpractices and to cleanse the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 81-year-old activist lamented that lack of awareness \namong voters and focus of political parties on winning the elections by \nhook or crook has led to degeneration of politics, and he saw no bright \nfuture for the country if the situation continued.Talking to PTI at his \nnative village in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, Hazare said voters\n were one of the pillars of democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut looking at the \nreports of cash seizure from various places during the electioneering, \none wonders why voters take money to vote. Is this the value of our \nfreedom fighters, who gave us Independence?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hazare \nfelt that the parties\u2019 approach of coming to power by hook or crook has \nresulted in criminalisation of politics. \u201cThe sanctity of Parliament and\n state Assemblies have come under threat,\u201d he said.The octogenarian said\n he believed in the Constitution of India, in which there was no mention\n of election symbols and political parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAny individual who \nis above the age of 25 can contest elections. For the last six years, I \nam in correspondence with the Election Commission of India seeking \nremoval of election symbols. The Constitution of India recognises only \nindividuals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The veteran Gandhian said using the \nsacrifices of martyrs for seeking votes was saddening. \u201cWhen the trend \nis to do anything to come to power, such misuse is seen and voters are \nsleeping,\u201d he said.He expressed sadness over not getting any response \nfrom Prime Minister Narendra Modi to his 32 letters written on a range \nof issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the appointment of Lokpal recently done by the\n Centre was not up to his expectations. \u201cBut, I am confident that it \nwill put a break on corrupt practices,\u201d Hazare added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To a \nquestion whether he was following the Lok Sabha election campaign, the \nactivist said, \u201cSociety does not remain the focal point in politics. The\n only motto is to get money through power and power through \nmoney.\u201dHazare said instead of the election symbols, names of candidates \nand their photos should be enough for voting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn 1952, when the \nfirst election was held , printing technology was not advanced and hence\n symbols were used. But now, you do not need symbols. This will curb the\n entry of undesirable people in the law-making bodies,\u201d he said.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ralegan SiddhiAnti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare has called for large-scale electoral reforms in the country to remove poll-related malpractices and to cleanse the system. The 81-year-old activist lamented that lack of awareness among voters and focus of political parties on winning the elections by hook or crook has led to degeneration of politics, and he saw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59546,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59544\/revisions\/59546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}