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Rajya Sabha polls : Supreme Court vacates stay |
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The Supreme Court last week cleared the decks for the Election Commission to hold elections to the Rajya Sabha for filling 65 vacancies from 14 States by vacating the interim order passed on June 4. The order had restrained the Commission from proceeding further with the conduct of the elections. The Court, however, made it clear that the election of candidates who contest from the State to which they do not belong would be subject to its final orders on the petitions filed by former MPs Kuldip Nayar and Inder Jit, challenging amendments made to the Representation of the People Act, dispensing with the domicile requirement and introducing the open ballot system.
The order was welcomed and not only because the interim order of June 4 was tantamount to an infringement of Article 329(b) of the Constitution barring interference by courts in any election process that had already started. In its absence, the country may have had to undergo the unprecedented experience of the Rajya Sabha being left with over one-fourth of its 250 seats vacant for the period the stay was in force. While, however, averting such a situation and enabling three Union Ministers, who are not members of either House of Parliament and have to be elected to one within six months of their assumption of office, to breathe a little more easily, the order provides partial relief.
Observers say it still leaves an element of uncertainty about the future by bringing the results of the elections retrospectively under its final verdict. The uncertainty results from the court’s order enjoining that in the eventuality of its striking down the amendments, those elected from States of which they are not normally residents will have to resign.
For the purpose of being elected to the Rajya Sabha, people had been declaring themselves to be residents of States with which they have never had any permanent connection. There are 18 members in the current Rajya Sabha who are representing States other than their known place of domicile in the House. The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, is among them. Although Dr. Singh’s status as an “ordinarily resident of Assam’’ has been settled by the court of law, it is well known that the Prime Minister does not hail from Assam, which he has been representing in the Council of States for over a decade.
The list of the Rajya Sabha members posted on the official website of the Parliament of India shows that members belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party and two Independents, besides the Congress, come under this category.
Nominations
The process of nominations had commenced earlier and there were quite a few surprises in the Congress and BJP lists of nominees for the Rajya Sabha elections. Najma Heptulla, Murli Manohar Joshi and Yashwant Sinha were among the BJP candidates nominated. While Heptulla would contest from Rajasthan, Sinha would contest from Jharkhand. Party President Venkaiah Naidu has been re-nominated from Karnataka and Pramod Mahajan from Maharashtra. A notable omission from the first list of BJP candidates was former Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie. The RSS lobby had been opposed to the Shourie brand of economic reforms and sale of profitable PSUs. Following the media highlight on the dropping of Shourie while favouring candidates like hotelier Lalit Suri, BJP has announced that Shourie had been nominated from Uttar Pradesh. But Shourie could find the going tough as he would fall short by at least 13 votes for the third seat for which he is contesting. He will need the help of the Samajwadi Party and also depend heavily on the Independent MLAs to make it.
Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Ambika Soni and Minister of State for Programme Implementation Oscar Fernandes are Congress candidates. It has also decided to field sitting MP Vijay Darda from Maharashtra and B K Hari Prasad from Karnataka. Patil, who lost from Latur in the Lok Sabha elections, will contest from Maharasthra.
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