The Election Commission will soon ask the Centre to amend The Representation of the People Act, 1951, to disqualify candidates named in chargesheets for bribing voters, PTI reported on Monday. The polling monitor will urge the Law Ministry to ensure that candidates contesting the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections are disqualified for up to five years once they are named in chargesheets for bribery.

The EC had earlier asked the government to give it power under the law to countermand an election where money has been used to sway voters. At present, the Election Commission can cancel an election only if there is evidence that muscle power has been used.

Earlier this month, the EC had cancelled the RK Nagar bye-poll in Tamil Nadu over allegations of parties bribing the electorate for votes. The polling monitor had said it would conduct the elections “in due course when the vitiating effect created by the distribution of money and gift items...gets removed with the passage of time”.

The decision was made days after the Income Tax Department conducted raids on Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijaybaskar’s properties in Chennai.