The Hindu : EC favours four-phase elections

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 21, 2004

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EC favours four-phase elections

By J. Venkatesan

The Congress leader, Pranab Mukherjee (second from right), greets the BJP leader, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, as the Telugu Desam Party leader Yerran Naidu (extreme left) and the BJP leader Pramod Mahajan (centre) look on prior to a meeting of political parties with the Election Commission in New Delhi on Friday. - Photo: V.V. Krishnan

NEW DELHI, FEB. 20. The Election Commission indicated today that the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in a few States would be held in four phases in April-May and the actual poll schedule would be announced at the "appropriate time" after considering factors such as school examinations, harvest, local festivals and weather conditions.

The Deputy Election Commissioner, A.N. Jha, told presspersons at the end of an all-party meeting that the Commission was "fine-tuning" the polling arrangements after hearing the views of all State Governments, political parties and the Central Government.

To a question, he said the model code of conduct would come into force only after the poll dates were announced.

In response to queries from the leaders of various political parties, the Chief Election Commissioner, T.S. Krishnamurthy, cited a Supreme Court judgment, according to which the code would come into force only from the date of announcement of the poll schedule and there must be a minimum of three weeks from the date of notification till the commencement of the polls.

Mr. Jha said the Commission had completed formal consultations with the Chief Secretaries, the Directors-General of Police, the Chief Electoral Officers and the Home Secretaries of the States as well as the Union Home Secretary, Anil Baijal.

Declining to give any date for the announcement of the poll schedule, he said the Commission was working out the modalities and seeking inputs from the States on school examinations, the harvesting season, important festivals and the monsoon, and said "all this will be kept in mind before announcing the poll dates."

To a question, Mr. Jha said there would be a four-phase election schedule, similar to the pattern of the 1999 elections. The suggestion of most political parties to have a one-day poll would be considered, taking into account the availability of para-military personnel and the logistics of their deployment. The Assembly elections would be held simultaneously in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Sikkim and Karnataka, along with the Lok Sabha polls.

Mr. Jha said the Commission had agreed to look into all problems vis-à-vis, the electoral rolls, including deletion or addition of bogus voters in some States as alleged by political parties. The Commission had rejected the request of some political parties that Central forces alone should be deployed in all constituencies of a particular State, saying that it would not be feasible. Special attention would be paid to the naxalite-affected areas in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

Asked whether the Commission had taken a decision on the Government's "request" for allowing the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, to use IAF aircraft during electioneering as in the case of the Prime Minister, he said "we will get back to you when the decision is taken." On whether the request was a new one or the earlier letter written in November last, Mr. Jha said, "it is a new request from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs." To another query if the letter was written by previous Home Secretary N. Gopalaswami, who is at present one of the Election Commissioners, he said "no".

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