The Hindu : Council polls in violation of laws

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 27, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore

Council polls in violation of laws

By B.K. Vittal

BANGALORE Nov. 26. Elections for 25 seats in the Legislative Council from the local authorities constituencies are scheduled for December 1. When they are completed, the election authorities will have performed a unique act: conduct of elections in violation of not only the provisions of election laws but also the Constitution itself, for the third time in succession.

The law mandates holding of biennial elections to the Legislative Council to fill the vacancies arising out of the retirement of about one-third of the members in each class, including the local authorities constituencies, at the end of two years.

But this has never happened in the State since 1988, when for the first time, elections were held simultaneously not only to fill the vacancies that arose that year, but also for the backlog vacancies of 1984 and 1986 which could not be filled as and when they arose because of non-availability of the electoral college (then mandal and zilla panchayats).

As if this was not enough, there was failure to hold elections in 1994 after the simultaneous retirement of all those elected in 1988 with the result that the 75-member Upper House had a truncated existence with only 50 members. Elections were held only in 1997, and it is to fill the vacancies that arise in January next, as a result of retirement of these 25 members, that the December elections are being held.

There is very little that can be done by the authorities to restore the biennial elections as both the Representation of the People Act (RP Act) and the Constitution guarantee a six-year term for the members of the Upper House which cannot be curtailed to make some of them retire at the end of two years or four years.

The R.P. Act empowers the Governor, after consultation with the Election Commission, to make provision for curtailing the six-year term of office of some of the members chosen at the time of the first constitution of the Council in order that nearly one-third of the members holding seats in each class (including local authorities constituency) retire every second year. There is no such provision for subsequent curtailment of the term of office of members of the Upper House.

The present situation, however, was not unanticipated. It is stated that the State Government had brought this to the notice of the Centre in 1994 and asked it to request the Election Commission to restore the cycle.

But the Commission had told the State that it had sent a detailed proposal to the Centre in 1991.

The only possible way to restore the cycle of the biennial system now is to hold elections for only one-third of the vacancies at the end of two years, according to legal experts who feel that holding of elections once in six years to fill all vacancies is unconstitutional and, therefore, void.

Busy as they are campaigning for their candidates in the elections which will allow them to know their political depth at the lowest level of village panchayats before facing the elections to the Assembly next October, none of the major political parties has bothered to go into the legal niceties of the December elections.

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