Sandesh Prabhudesai
13 Feb 1999
Goa expects Assembly polls by May end, following the President’s
rule imposed since last week. But can the election commission fulfil the requirement ? If
not, then the legal hitch may postpone the polls till November, when it was actually
scheduled even otherwise.
The problem lies with a summary revision of the electoral roll, without
which no election can be held as per the provisions of the Representation of Peoples’
Act. Goa perhaps would be the first state in the country to hold polls without revision,
if the EC waives the provision.
The ball has already started rolling to begin the process of summary
revision from 1 April, which would be completed only on 12 July with final publication of
the revised electoral roll. "Once taken up, it cannot be completed in not less than
three months", clarifies Kewal Sharma, the local chief electoral officer.
But Goa has a practical problem in holding elections till October, if
not held by May end, as the monsoons arrive here by first week of June, making it
impossible to conduct elections due to heavy showers as well as the field work in the
villages.
Though former Congress chief minister Luizinho Faleiro has suggested to
prepone the revision process and complete it within one month, the local election office
appears helpless. The actual revision takes place in the primary schools, used as polling
stations, by appointing primary teachers as the designated officers. Both would be
available only after March examinations.
As nine states complete their terms between last week of December to
first week of April, chief election commissioner M S Gill had recently announced in
Bangalore his plans to hold elections in all these states together in February 2000. It is
still not clear whether Goa would be deleted from the list in the changed circumstances.
"Keeping the state in the hands of bureaucracy for such a long
time is not good for a healthy democracy", opines Dr Wilfred de Souza, another former
chief minister. Preponing the EC’s original plan appears inevitable as it would
otherwise compel the union cabinet to extend the six-month long President’s rule for
the third time.
Governor J F R Jacob has assured the people here to make a strong plea
before the EC for elections as early as possible. But it all depends on Mr Gill, who may
not take a risk of waiving a legal provision of summary revision to hold polls six months
in advance.
Though the rolls were revised on 1 January 1998, it followed
Parliamentary elections while section 21 of the act clearly states that no elections,
either Lok Sabha, Assembly or the by-elections, could be held without a fresh summary
revision.
The only loophole the act is having is "unless otherwise directed
by the Election Commission for reasons to be recorded in writing", failing which the
summary revision is a must. While all the political parties in Goa have started preparing
for polls by May end, it ultimately depends on what the EC decides about the issue.
The tourist state otherwise has no other option than going for polls in
November, which was a scheduled time even if the House was not dissolved and the
President’s rule was not imposed.
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