Hyperactive Ec creates confusion In Karnataka
Whether or not there is a precedence, it’s difficult to adjudge the postponement of the by-elections to 15 Assembly seats in Karnataka as par for the course. What the Election Commission was thinking when it announced these bypoll dates along with a slew of others, including Assembly polls to Haryana and Maharashtra, is not clear. Did it forget that the matter of the disqualification/resignation of MLAs formerly with the Congress-JD(S) government, triggering its collapse, was before the Supreme Court? Or did the EC think its institutional mandate is somehow unilateral and above everything else, including the apex court?
From the beginning, the EC inveigled itself into the case, ex parte. First, jumping the gun by declaring the rebel candidates could contest the elections—and now, in hasty retreat, coming up with fresh poll dates for December 5. Before this, the Supreme Court will hear the matter of the disqualification on October 22. Curiously, views have been delivered to the apex court in a sealed cover. How does a matter relating to the popular vote become amenable to such a non-transparent handling? But then we are an ‘evolving democracy’!
The core question—whether their resignation is to be upheld or their subsequent disqualification by the then Speaker—is a bit of a chicken-and-egg issue. Did the Speaker overstep his mandate by disqualifying the MLAs not just from the House but from the entire tenure of the Assembly? The 10th Schedule does not specify any term period for disqualification. We have the SC’s obiter dicta that the resignations could have been made to pave the way for defection. But can a person be stopped from contesting elections, a basic democratic right, unless categorically stated in an existing law? That the rebel MLAs created a constitutional crisis for months is beside the legal point. The political skulduggery, as well as the EC’s hyperactivity, comes as a reflection of the times though.