The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court today asked the Election Commission of India as to "what are the stringent provisions/rules required to be taken to bring down the trend of more and more letter pad political parties with various agenda including communal and religious coming into existence".
Justice N Kirubakaran posed a series of questions to the ECI on a petition filed by M Karunakaran, claiming to be leader of Desiya Makkal Sakthi Party, who sought to register a case against the Health Minister C Vijaya Baskar for having allegedly forced an aspirant to the post of Municipality Chairman of Pudukottai to withdraw from the contest.
The court wanted to know whether registered political parties and recognised political parties were submitting yearly report regarding their activities, accounts, etc, and what are the privileges being given to the registered parties and recognised parties.
The judge asked what were the procedures for registering/ recognising political parties, norms that the respective parties were supposed to comply when they come to the ECI with application for registration or recognition. "How many political parties are registered parties," the judge asked.
Karunakaran said that he was a councillor of Pudukottai Municipality. His party had decided to field one of its cadres Balakrishnan for the post of municipality chairman in the elections recently. However, the health minister and AIADMK cadres "forced" the candidate to withdraw from the contest, the petitioner alleged.
The court posted the case for hearing to October 30.
