The reports that have been coming out of several states, the latest being West Bengal, for some time now will cause consternation and deep distress in the minds of all those who believe in electoral democracy in the country. They show a disturbing pattern of administrative arbitrariness and ad-hocism, irreverence to basic norms of electoral practices and a concerted effort to discredit, dismember and disarm political parties which do not conform to the ideals of the party in power at the Centre.
The events that are unfolding ahead of the October 6 byelections to the West Bengal Assembly are disturbing. The split in the All-India Trinamul Congress with rebel MPs joining a political non-entity and later parading themselves along with the NDA members form part of a script which is not very familiar in the Indian political theatre. But if that is not enough, the Election Commission has now frozen the name and election symbol of the Trinamul Congress and allotted new names and symbols to the factions led, respectively, by party founder Mamata Banerjee and the rebels. The basis for the Election Commission’s decision is not known. The Supreme Court had only last week asked the EC why it chose to recognise one faction of the Shiv Sena and allot the symbol “bow and arrow” to it instead of freezing it. It appears that the EC has different criteria for deciding similar cases in different states.
The fast-paced developments related to the byelections send a more menacing signal. The Trinamul Congress candidate in the Nandigram Assembly bypoll withdrew his nomination once the time for filing nomination papers was over, leaving the party no time to field another. Left with little options, the Trinamul Congress then opted to support the Congress candidate. Yet by no stretch of imagination could one anticipate that the Congress candidate would then be arrested in a 19-year-old case and remanded to judicial custody till October 3, but these indeed happened. Unless the higher courts intervene, they will have little or no time to campaign in the election.
If the Congress candidate for Nandigram was arrested, the Trinamul Congress candidate for Rejinagar bypoll announced his withdrawal from the contest alleging, among many things, that the police were terrorising his supporters. He, however, later decided to stay in the fray.
Finally, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha summed up this trend that is being seen across the country when he said, “First the Shiv Sena, then NCP, and now Trinamul Congress. Every time, the same pattern — the BJP and the Election Commission join forces to split a party. Then its election symbol is snatched away.” This trend, if sustained, and repeated successfully, has the potential to end electoral democracy in the country.
The elections to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly were held this year after deleting the names of about 90 lakh people from the voters’ list after a special intensive revision (SIR) conducted by the EC. It was revealed only recently that over 37 lakh appeals against deletion or inclusion of names in those rolls under the SIR remain pending. The poll panel told the Supreme Court last week that tribunals have disposed of only about 1.02 lakh of the 38.20 lakh appeals filed so far.
It’s a testing time for Indian democracy. It is also time for its stakeholders to wake up and stand up for it.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
