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An all-party meeting on Monday rejected the Election Commission move to implement the Supreme Court directive asking candidates to disclose their antecedents, instead asking the government to bring out a comprehensive legislation to 'curb criminalisation of politics' and 'bring in probity in public life'.
"There was unanimity among political parties that such a move could be politically misused," senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra told reporters after a three-hour long meeting convened by Law Minister Jana Krishnamurthy to assess the implications of the EC's move.
Malhotra said that under EC guidelines, any Revenue Officer had the power to reject the nomination of a candidate, which would lead to misuse of the proposal.
Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee said that it was felt at the meeting that 'we must have a law (on tackling criminalisation of politics) and it should not be left to the directives of the judiciary or any other constitutional authority'.
He said that the government has accepted the suggestions of political parties for bringing forward a legislation to replace the EC guidelines after thoroughly scrutinising them.
"This was the unanimous view of political parties," he said.
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