Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday said the Congress did not have any guideline to stop giving tickets to criminals and he supported party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s statement denouncing the ordinance to protect convicted lawmakers.
Gogoi admitted that he had in the past allowed accused persons to contest elections in the state as per “AICC principle” as his “word is not the final word”. “I whole-heartedly welcome Rahul ji’s statement. Politics should be a clean affair… I am dead against it (the ordinance),” Gogoi said at a press conference here.
In a major embarrassment to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi yesterday termed the controversial ordinance to negate the Supreme Court verdict on convicted lawmakers as “complete nonsense” and said what “our government has done is wrong”.
Asked if Assam Congress had ever given tickets to accused and criminals, Gogoi said: “I will not say I have never given (chances). Sometimes I have given chances to charge-sheeted people or may be rape, murder and TADA accused. But, I have never given a chance to a convict or a person against whom there is substantial charges.”
Asked specifically about the reasons for giving tickets to accused persons, Gogoi said: “I am giving it as AICC principle has given this… The Congress party does not have any guidelines regarding selection of candidates. “Sometimes it is compulsion, sometimes it is lack of good candidates and sometimes due to many reasons. It will not go as per my wish. I am not the boss. I am not the final authority. I am not the dictator. My word is not the final word,” he said.However, the number of accused getting tickets to contest elections in Assam is very less compared to other states, he claimed.
The chief minister also said he supported the Supreme Court’s verdict on citizens’ right to reject all candidates in his/her constituency.
“I welcome the verdict. People should have the right to reject all the candidates if they do not find any suitable one,” Gogoi told reporters at a press conference here.
He said earlier candidates were good, but later some problems came in. “Personally I think that it (the voting options in an election) should be revised. I will personally write to the Prime Minister for this,” Gogoi said.
In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court had yesterday held that citizens have right to cast negative votes rejecting,all candidates in a seat, a decision which would encourage people not satisfied with contestants to turn up for voting during an election.
The apex court had also directed the Election Commission to provide ‘none of the above options’ at the end of the list of candidates in EVMs and ballot papers. Regarding political funding, Gogoi said: “Political funding should be open. It will lessen corruption. Earlier it was open and it was better.”
On encouraging small industries, he said the government would set up five big centres with machineries to generate employment and encourage entrepreneurship.
Asked about the Raghuram Rajan panel report on the state’s development, Gogoi said: “It is better to have the tag of a backward state, because this will help us in getting more funds from the Central government. My aim is to make Assam a developed state. We have progressed a lot, but still have not reached that position.” (PTI)