New Delhi, Aug. 30: The CPM today launched a campaign against the Election Commission’s style of functioning and circulated a booklet among political parties demanding reforms in it.

“We want reforms within the commission and to make it more accountable,” said CPM general secretary Prakash Karat at a news conference here. “We want amendments in the Representation of People’s Act and in the articles pertaining to the commission in the Constitution.”

The CPM has been at loggerheads with the poll panel over the way it conducted the Bengal Assembly polls and handled the office-of-profit row.

Karat today made it clear that his party is taking the battle a step forward.

The CPM, he said, is preparing the groundwork for a national discussion which, it hopes, will lead to a solution to its conflict with the commission.

“This will help us to decide a constitutional mechanism to monitor and check the commission if it acts with political bias, usurps the powers of the government,” said Karat. “I have dealt with the commission for 20 years. Never before have I experienced this kind of functioning, not even during (former election commissioner T.N.) Seshan’s time,” he pointed out.

Karat’s plea is likely to strike a chord among all political parties which have at some time or the other “suffered” because of the commission.

The 23-page booklet says: “It is necessary to define the powers and authorities of the commission.” The party has demanded a relook at the powers of election observers.

“In spite of many queries, the commission has not been able to clarify whether the observers are vested with executive powers or not,” says the CPM.

The party has raised the crucial question whether it is within the commission’s jurisdiction to discipline central and state government officials and to prevent deployment of state police personnel, as was done during the Bengal polls.

“Law and order is the exclusive prerogative of the state government under the Constitution. The Constitution does not have any saving clause which can override this power even during the election,” the CPM says.

“The commission members must be debarred from enjoying any office after their retirement either under the government or as governor or as members of Parliament,” the CPM demands.