The Gujarat High Court on Friday upheld the state government's mandatory provision of having functional toilets for contesting local body polls and said a person seeking to fight election must stand as a “role model”. Rejecting a set of petitions filed by five people, including four women, who had challenged the amendments to the Gujarat Panchayat Act, the single-judge bench of Justice C L Soni lauded the provision, saying it would help achieve the goal of Swachh Bharat. The state government had last year brought in amendments wherein it was mandated that to contest elections to district, taluka, village panchayats, municipality and municipal corporations, candidates must have functional toilets in their homes. [related-post] The petitioners had challenged the provision on May 8 after they were barred from contesting the gram panchyat election in Dahod for not having functional toilets in their houses. Advocate Roopal Patel, who represented the Election Commission in the case, said that it was found that the petitioners merely had structures of toilets in their houses, which were not functional, and that is why their nominations were rejected.
