EC to approach govt for more power BJP readies plan to negate problem of plenty in Maha
Party admits there are 3-4 strong contenders for every seat and does not want discontent to set in
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will deploy a group of senior leaders in each of the assembly constituencies it contests in the Maharashtra state polls, scheduled for October 21, to pre-empt any rebellion in the party after candidate selection, a senior party leader said on condition of anonymity.
“We have at least three to five strong contenders for every seat; and only one can get [the party] ticket. Our biggest challenge is to manage [a potential] rebellion after distribution of tickets,” the BJP leader said. “We will depute a ‘damage control team’ in each assembly constituency to preempt any sabotage by those who do not get a ticket.”
The BJP is now in seat-sharing talks with its partner in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena. According to an Election Commission notification, the last date for filing of nominations for the Maharashtra polls is October 4; the verdict will be out on October 24.
Devendra Fadnavis became the BJP’s first chief minister of Maharashtra in 2014 after the party contested the elections to the 288-member assembly on its own and emerged as the single largest party in the House. The BJP won 122 seats and the Shiv Sena 63 in the 2014 state polls.
The party and the Shiv Sena, which had been the senior partner in the coalition with the BJP that ruled Maharashtra in 1995-99, joined hands by forming a post-poll alliance in 2014. In the April-May parliamentary polls, the BJP won 23 out of 25 seats it contested and the Sena 18 out of the 23 seats it fought.
In a way, it is a problem of plenty for the BJP in the western state this time around when it comes to candidate selection, according to analysts.
BJP’s general secretary Bhupendra Yadav, Uttar Pradesh’s deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and Karnataka deputy chief minister Laxman Savadi are monitoring this exercise. A zonal in-charge has also been appointed informally in each of the six regions of Maharashtra — Amravati, Aurangabad, Konkan, Nagpur, Nashik, Pune — to work closely with these “damage control teams”, which may seek support from local leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s ideological parent, if such a need arises.
The party expects to win Maharashtra again. An alliance with the Sena is expected to
Election Commission of India (ECI), the poll watchdog, is making a renewed effort to get the law ministry to approve measures to give it more teeth by empowering it to deregister political parties and bar contestants from running for election to two seats, people aware of the development said.
ECI also wants the facility of casting votes through postal ballots to be extended to people engaged in essential services, including healthcare and the aviation and railway sectors, the people quoted above said. At present, only those employed by the armed forces, state police forces and government employees posted abroad, as well as those on election duty and those in preventive detention are allowed to votes through postal ballots.
Some recommendations made to help reinforce ECI’s powers have been pending for over a decade. It will raise the issue soon with the law ministry, but a date for talks is yet to be fixed.
One suggestion that has been widen the BJP’s victory margin; and it is only natural that there will be several claimants for party nominations, a second BJP leader said, requesting anonymity.
“We saw a similar race for party tickets in 2017 assembly election in Uttar Pradesh. An efficient management of sulking leaders following distribution of tickets helped us win UP with a huge margin. Maharashtra is also too big a state to allow any slip,” the second leader said.
The BJP is asking the Sena to leave 165 seats for it, and a formal announcement on seat-sharing pending for over a decade is the suggestion to make voter registration more than just an annual exercise. According to an official who didn’t want to be named, the EC has proposed that the process of allowing those who turn 18 to be included in the electoral rolls should be a quarterly exercise so that if there is a by-election, those who aren’t listed as voters on January 1 can also cast their votes.
Currently, as per section 14(b) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the qualifying date for eligibility for enrolment in the is expected soon. Several rounds of discussions have already taken place in Mumbai to prepare a panel of prospective candidate for the seats that the BJP is likely to contest.
A formal decision on candidates will be taken at a meeting of the BJP’s central election committee after Prime Minister Narendra Modi returns from his US trip on September 28.
Many seats that the BJP contested in 2014 may go to its ally in next month’s elections when the alliance is sewn up. “It is natural that there will be some heartburn among BJP candidates who electoral roll of a particular year is January 1 of that year; those who turn 18, the age at which one becomes eligible to vote, after January 1 are added only when the rolls are revised the next year.
If any election takes place in between, these voters cannot cast their vote. “Since the commission wants no voter to be left behind, this amendment is required ... the law ministry suggested two qualifying dates — January and July 1, but it is yet to be implemented,” the official cited above said.
Another recommendation that lose their seats to the Sena. We will also depute leaders for damage control exercise in seats that will go to the Sena,” the second BJP leader said.
Sidharth Mishra, president of New Delhi-based Centre for Reforms, Development and Justice, said: “The economics of politics is such that a ruling party with fair chances of returning to power will naturally have more saboteurs than the party hankering to regain power. BJP poll management team has done well to put a mechanism in place in advance to counter any move at subversion.” was made in 2004 said candidates should not be allowed to contest more than one seat at a time.
The ECI had also suggested that if this is not accepted, then there should be an express provision in the law under which any candidate who wins two seats, resulting in a by-poll from one of the two constituencies, will have to deposit a fixed amount to meet the expenditure for holding the by-election.
Another proposal made in 2004 that will be taken up again is extending constitutional protection to all ECI members that will ensure that the two election commissioners are granted the same protection as the chief election commissioner, who cannot be removed from office except in the same manner and on the same grounds as a judge of the Supreme Court.
“The reason for giving protection to a chief election commissioner at par with an SC Judge was in order to ensure the independence of the Commission and insulating them from political pressure,” a former chief election commissioner said, requesting anonymity.