A Supreme Court decision on the Constitutional question whether more than one person can contest from a single ward in the local body elections will be crucial in deciding the outcome of the results of Gujarat’s crucial polls to the municipal corporations, municipalities and panchayats due in November.
Six major municipal corporations — Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar — in the State are scheduled to go to the polls on November 22.
This will be followed by elections in 56 municipalities, 31 district panchayats and about 230 taluka panchayats on November 29. The dates of counting are November 26 for the municipal corporations elections and December 2 for the municipality and panchayat polls.
But a Bench led by Justice J. Chelameswar on Thursday cast a cloud over the pre-poll excitement in the State by observing that the results of these elections would depend on the outcome of a special leave petition filed by several Vadodara residents challenging the Constitutionality of provisions in the Gujarat local laws which allow ‘multi-member ward election concept’.
Declining to stay the November elections, the Bench observed: “We are not inclined to grant any interim order as prayed for. We only observe that the result of the elections to be held would be subject to the outcome of the instant special leave petition.”
The petition, filed through advocate Anirudh Sharma, has contended that provisions in the Gujarat Provincial Municipal Corporation Act, 1949, Gujarat Local Authorities Laws (Amendment) Act, 2009, and Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation Rules allow “arbitrary change in the constitution of wards and seats”.
The petition was filed in the apex court after the Gujarat High Court dismissed it on July 29, 2015.
Justice Chelameswar’s Bench had earlier stayed the High Court order and issued notice to the State government and the State Election Commission.
In deciding this petition, the Supreme Court will lay down the law on “whether Article 243 S of the Constitution mandates that only one member be elected from one ward or does it allow more than one member to be allowed from the same ward.”
Counting laterMeanwhile, the Gujarat State Election Commission told the Supreme Court on Thursday that counting of votes at all local body elections, from municipal corporations to municipalities and panchayats in Gujarat, would be done only after conclusion of all the elections in order to prevent voter sympathies from swaying in favour of any single political party.
