ECI isn’t responsible for Chandigarh mayor election misconduct. Poll officer is at fault

ECI isn’t responsible for Chandigarh mayor election misconduct. Poll officer is at fault

In India, state election commissions are independent of the Election Commission of India (ECI). However, whenever fraudulent activities happen in local body polls, the ECI comes under the scanner. This is what’s happening in the controversy surrounding the Chandigarh mayoral polls. It’s time to address the growing disinformation about the ECI’s powers and spell out who is actually responsible forlocalelections in the states and Union territories.

Following the Supreme Court’s intervention to prevent the attempted hijacking of the Chandigarh mayoral election, the controversy has been used to cast aspersions on the ECI. Senior journalists such as Swati Chaturvedi and several political activists have publicly questioned the ECI’s silence on this issue. Several social media users have amplified similar concerns.

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar has also been questioned in this regard, and he stated that no officials involved in electoral malpractice be spared. However, the public is unsatisfied with his response, indicating a growing distrust in the ECI.

The Chandigarh episode has occurred in the context of ongoing protests against the electronic voting machine (EVM), and hence, both issues have been intermixed to question the sanctity of the electoral process. This is a very dangerous trend for Indian democracy. It is pertinent to examine the reasons for the ECI’s silence in the Chandigarh mayoral election. On this pretext, I explain the constitutional structure and functioning of the electoral machinery in our country.

Get the basics right

As per the Constitution, the ECI is not responsible for conducting municipal elections in Chandigarh. Instead, it is the responsibility of the Delhi State Election Commission. As far as mayoral polls are concerned, even the State Election Commission cannot be held responsible.

The ECI is constituted under the provision of Article 324 of the Constitution, which clearly states that the electoral watchdog shall be responsible for conducting elections for Parliament (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha), state legislatures (legislative assembly and legislative council), president, and vice-president. To conduct parliamentary and state assembly elections, the ECI prepares a common electoral roll, which regularly gets updated. For the smooth functioning of the electoral process, the ECI appoints a senior administrative officer as Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) in every state.

Meanwhile, local elections to panchayats and municipal corporations are conducted by state election commissions, which are constituted under Article 243K and Article 243ZA of the Constitution. The provision of state election commissions was added through the 73rd Constitutional Amendment in 1992.

The state election commissions prepare electoral rolls for conducting panchayat and local body elections, separate from the roll prepared by the ECI for parliamentary and assembly elections. At the polling booth level, both electoral rolls are prepared by schoolteachers or village officials. People often get confused about this distinction, and the ECI is unnecessarily questioned for malpractice in local elections.

There is also some confusion among people regarding the roles of the state election commissioner and the CEO. Both are different authorities. The former is a constitutional authority, whereas the latter is an officer. To add further clarification, Manoj Kumar is currently the state election commissioner of Uttar Pradesh, whereas Navdeep Rinwa is the CEO of the state.

Case of Chandigarh

Chandigarh is a Union territory governed by the administrator, and the Governor of Punjab acts as the ex officio administrator of the UT.

However, Chandigarh does not have its own state election commission. Instead, the State Election Commission of Delhi (not the ECI), established under Articles 243K and 243ZA of the Constitution, along with Section 7 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act 1957, exercises the authority of the state election commission for Chandigarh. This authority is granted by subsection (1) of Section 10 of the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act 1976, as extended to the Union Territory of Chandigarh through the Punjab Municipal Corporation Law (Extension to Chandigarh) Act 1994.

This section states that the superintendence, direction, and control of the preparation of the electoral rolls for and the conduct of all elections to the Chandigarh Corporation shall be vested in the Election Commission appointed under Section 7 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act 1957.

The state election commission is responsible for conducting elections for councillors. However, it is the councillors who elect the mayor. According to Section 38 of the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act 1976, extended to the Union territory of Chandigarh by the Punjab Municipal Corporation Law (Extension to Chandigarh) Act 1994, the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation shall, at its first meeting in each year, elect one of its elected members to be the mayor of the corporation.

Section 60(a) of the Act provides that the meeting for the election of the mayor shall be convened by the ‘Divisional Commissioner,’ who shall nominate a councillor not running for election to preside over the meeting. Similarly, Regulation 6(1) of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (Procedure and Conduct of Business) Regulations 1964 states that a meeting for the election of a mayor shall be convened by the ‘prescribed authority,’ who will nominate a councillor not running as a candidate to preside over the meeting.

The Deputy Commissioner of the Union Territory of Chandigarh was designated as the presiding authority for this purpose by a notification dated 4 October 1994. It was the Deputy Commissioner who nominated Anil Masih as the presiding authority to conduct the election for mayor and deputy mayor. He was bound by the aforementioned act to make the nomination. I have been told by senior officials that it is a convention in Chandigarh to nominate a nominated councillor.

The Deputy Commissioner seems to have nominated Masih to honour the convention. However, the convention of nominating a nominated member as the presiding officer was apparently meant for the elimination of partisanship. This was envisioned because nominated members are supposed to be ‘from among the persons who are eminent or distinguished in public affairs or those who have special knowledge or practical experience in respect of municipal administration.’

Ideally, the nominated councillors should not be affiliated with any political party. However, this convention was broken by the administrator of Chandigarh, Banwari Lal Purohit, who resigned, citing personal reasons in the first week of February when the election controversy began. He nominated all nine members with links to the BJP. Among them was Masih, who has served as general secretary in BJP’s Minority Morcha.

To sum up, the Chandigarh mayor election controversy is less about the partisanship of the election commission and more about the role of the presiding officer. We have been witnessing how, day by day, presiding officers of state legislative assemblies/councils, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, have started acting in a partisan manner. Such behaviours are imitated by local officials like Masih who are supposed to play a similar role.

Arvind Kumar (@arvind_kumar__), Lecturer, Department of Law and Criminology, Royal Holloway, University of London. Views are personal. (Edited by Ratan Priya)