By IANS,
Panaji : Former chief election commissioner (CEC) J.M. Lyngdoh Saturday said the poll panel should be empowered to step in and make sure internal elections within political parties were legitimate and transparent.
Lyngdoh, who is in Goa to deliver a lecture on good governance, was speaking to reporters at the venue.
“Election Commission needs to be proactive in matters of elections within political parties … EC should take over these elections and make the matters transparent,” he said,
Lyngdoh said that it was imperative to ensure that the constitution of political parties had to be in sync with the Constitution of India and that was enough ground for the ECI to step in and clean up intra-party election systems.
“Elections within the political parties should be transparent and civil society members should be nominated as observers to oversee the election process,” he suggested.
He was, however, against granting more powers to the institution of the ECI which he said would then be “another demon” in a democratic system to contend with.
“No more powers are needed,” Lyngdoh said.