'Citizens should take lead to supress influence of money in politics': VP Naidu

Vice President Venkaiah Naidu while addressing the annual conference on 'Money Power In Politics' opined that citizens must take the lead in order to suppress money power in electoral politics, adding that election commission alone cannot prevent the influence of money power in electoral politics.

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"Money power in politics cannot be controlled by Election Commission alone. Political parties, civil society, corporates and organizations working for electoral reforms have a larger role to play in countering this. But most important is that the citizen voters should take lead in preventing the use of money power," Naidu said.

"Voter should realize that casting the vote for a few thousand is the highest form of moral compromise and it is against democratic ethics. If a citizen sells his vote then he forfeits the right to take on the government he voted for," he added.

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'Electoral reforms needed against corruption' 

He also added that voters must be made aware of the power of their votes and how selling votes for cash has adverse implications, "Electoral reforms should be brought in to break the vicious cycle of corruption and erosion of the quality of our democratic polity. Effective campaigns need to be undertaken to educate the voters about the virtue and power of their votes and adverse implications of compromising voting," he said.

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Speaking about the power of voting and how it has been misused by involving money into the electoral system, Naidu said that people should vote on the basis of four C's -  Character, Caliber, Capacity and Conduct of the candidate, "If you vote according to that, then nobody will need to spend much money. But unfortunately, certain politicians and political systems have developed other four C's to rephrase the original four C's - Caste, Community, Cash and Criminality," he added.

The annual conference on 'Money Power In Politics' was organized by the Indian School of Business on Thursday.

(With ANI inputs, image courtesy PTI)

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