New Delhi: Former President R Venkataraman has called for urgent reforms to remove "serious maladies" in the country's electoral system as they "distorted" the representative Democracy.

"The serious maladies in the electoral system is making a mockery of the sacred norm of representative Democracy and has distorted it. There is an urgent need for not merely bringing in reforms, but a will power for implementing it," he said speaking at a seminar 'Democracy and Rule of Law'.

Venkataraman said that the "state of affairs" is unlikely to improve unless some drastic change was brought about in the nomination process, anti-defection laws and ways of dealing with criminalisation of politics and corruption.

While stressing on the need for a "change of mindset" among the voters, Venkataraman said, "The attention of the people are now distracted from the main issues."

"Today the people are swayed by exhibitionism and controversies raked up by parties. Unfortunately, a trend has set in where a criminal or a corrupt candidate is a big hit with the voters and they do not have any consideration for ideals and principles one stands for," he said at the function on November 18 night.

Echoing Venkataraman's views, former Prime Minister I K Gujral ridiculed the "demonstration of unanimity" among political parties just for "thwarting any attempts to cleanse the electoral arena".

PTI