Favouring strong steps to check criminalisation in politics, Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi has said that candidates against whom courts have framed charges should be barred from contesting polls.

The matter is pending before Parliament, he said on the question of disqualifying candidates with criminal records.

"We have no powers to disqualify (anyone). A suggestion to that effect was rejected by a parliamentary committee as political rivals might file bogus cases to get their rivals disqualified," he said.

Quraishi advocated that a multi-purpose national identity card should be issued to all Indians to manage citizen identity.

"We have been pressing the Government of India to have a national identity card. There is serious thinking to have a single multipurpose national identity card," he said here at an interactive session at the House of Commons.

The idea of a multipurpose national identity card (MNIC) was mooted by the Vajpayee-led NDA government in 2002, and later taken up by the UPA government.

Aimed at addressing national security, the problem of illegal immigration and managing citizen identity, an exercise has been set in motion by the government which approved the establishment of a national authority for unique identity. It is being overseen by the Planning Commission.

Delivering a lecture on the recent elections in India, Qureshi said while 82 per cent of the 714 million voters were provided ID cards, in the next elections, cent per cent of the electorate is expected to be covered.