Poonam Mahajan, Member of Parliament from Mumbai and General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has assured Police Reforms Watch, Mumbai that she and her party is fully committed to the cause of police reforms as per the letter and spirit of the Supreme Court’s directives.
In the course of her meeting with members of Police Reforms Watch yesterday some other citizens committed to good governance, Ms. Mahajan said that the Union Home Minister is very enthusiastic about police reforms, and so are the BJP governments in the States.
Police Reforms Watch handed over a memorandum listing a charter of demands for good policing and Ms. Mahajan took particular interest in CHRI’s critique of the amended Maharashtra Police Act which the government has bulldozed through.
The very fact that the Bill, in gross contravention of the Supreme Court’s directives, was passed in the Assembly without a debate or a consultation with the public and civil society shows the insincerity towards police reforms and accountability. Ms. Mahajan was in full agreement with this assertion of Dolphy D’Souza. Convenor of PRW, and reaffirmed her commitment to a joint endeavour.
Dolphy D’souza remark to her was “BJP , must give us a clear picture of how they are going to give Maharashtra good policing. Police Reforms Watch and Commonwealth Human Right Initiative (CHRI) urge that a plan for better policing is in their BJP manifesto for the forthcoming Maharashtra Assembly Elections, 2014.”
