NEW DELHI: "Casting aspersions" on the Election Commission will work against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi said today.
He termed as "loose" Kejriwal's remarks that the EC has not been able to stop corruption in the last 70 years. Quraishi, however, added that the AAP chief, perhaps needs to "articulate" his argument on bribery carefully. He could be right to an extent, he said.
"These comments were loose...to certain extent he is right as well and that is why we are debating the issue. (On bribery) perhaps he has to articulate it carefully. But casting aspersions on the EC is something that is going to work against him," Quraishi said at an event organised by the Association for Democratic Reforms here.
Kejriwal was recently censured by the Election Commission for his comments asking voters in Goa to take money from rival political parties but vote only for AAP. The Aam Aadmi Party chief had yesterday told the poll panel that his remarks were aimed to contain graft and sought a review of its order to allow him to repeat the comments.
Kejriwal today once again attacked the EC and said that by stopping him from making these remarks, the poll body was promoting corruption.
Meanwhile, Quraishi, who held the post of CEC from July 2011 to June 2012, also batted for public funding of political parties, which he said would be more effective than state funding of elections.
The absence of any expenditure cap on political parties makes the ceiling on spending of individual legislators a "mockery", he said.