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December 28, 2005
Illegality of contesting elections from two constituencies?
Amar (my friend) thinks that we could clean up some of the bad parts of Indian polity through public interest litigations (PIL). The first anomaly he raises is about how our electors contest from more than one constituency and then drop one constituency after they get elected. This is immoral. And also we hope that it violates some of the principles in constitution. This anomaly is being misused by so many of our elected representatives.
There are two counts by which this provision is immoral (and hopefully illegal): 1) How can a person be standing for elections from two constituencies? This is waste of our resources. 2) There is more fundamental flaw: How can a person represent a constituency where he is not resident?
You can't generally walk into a different city or different state and hope to vote there. You have to prove your residency there and get yourself into voter list. So there are some minimum requirements by which one can become a voter of a particular constituency. And also it is illegal to be on voter list of two constituencies. If there are such minimal requirements for voting, how can there be no such requirements for our electors? The electors got to at least fulfill the minimal requirements of a voter. If you are representing the people of that constituency in a legislature, how can you get away not being the resident of that constituency? How can an elector who does not even fulfill the minimal voter residency requirements hope to understand and fight for the issues of that constituency?
Only "Ordinary Resident" needs to be be allowed to run for election from any constituency. Amar hopes to find any contradicting laws or loopholes and hopes to raise PIL in Supreme Court of India. It is a worthy cause! Anybody who understand the issue better, please do pass comments.
Posted by nachiketa at December 28, 2005 05:20 PM
Comments
This was the latest Proposal I have heard of:
RESTRICTION ON THE NUMBER OF SEATS FROM WHICH ONE MAY CONTEST
As per the law as it stands at present [Sub-Section (7) of Section 33 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951], a person can contest a general election or a group of bye-elections or biennial elections from a maximum of two constituencies.
There have been several cases where a person contests election from two constituencies, and wins from both. In such a situation he vacates the seat in one of the two constituencies. The consequence is that a bye-election would be required from one constituency involving avoidable
labour and expenditure on the conduct of that bye-election.
The Commission is of the view that the law should be amended to provide that a person cannot contest from more than one constituency at a time.
The Commission will also add that in case the legislature is of the view that the provision facilitating contesting from two constituencies as existing at present is to be retained,
then there should be an express provision in the law requiring a person who contests and wins election from two seats, resulting in a bye-election from one of the two constituencies,
to deposit in the government account an appropriate amount of money being the expenditure for holding the bye-election. The amount could be Rs.5,00,000/- for State
Assembly and Council election and Rs.10,00,000/- for election to the House of the People.
Posted by: JT at December 31, 2005 03:16 PM