69 debarred from contesting polls in Maharashtra

MUMBAI, MAY 5: Senior Samajwadi Party leader Chandrika Kenia, Janata Dal's Haribhau Mahale and 67 others have been debarred from contesti...

MUMBAI, MAY 5: Senior Samajwadi Party leader Chandrika Kenia, Janata Dal’s Haribhau Mahale and 67 others have been debarred from contesting Assembly as well as Parliament elections for three years by the Election Commission for failing to file their returns on poll expenditure.

Under the Representation of People’s Act and rules prescribed by the EC, it is mandatory that the contesting candidate should file a return of his election expenditure to the Commission within three months from the date of declaration of results.

Kenia, a former Minister of State, had unsuccessfully contested the 1998 Lok Sabha polls from Thane as a Samajwadi Party nominee. Despite lossing out to Shiv Sena candidate Prakash Paranjape, Kenia did not file her returns in the format prescribed by the EC. Kenia who was earlier with the Congress subsequently joined the Shiv Sena and then the Samajwadi Party.

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Similar was the case of former MP Haribhau Mahale, who was defeated from Malegaon parliamentary constituency in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections.

Before debarring them from contesting the elections, the EC had served them a notice required under the Representation of People’s Act, but there was no response from any of the 69 candidates. Subsequently, the EC debarred them from contesting the elections.

Though it was on the Statute, the rules prescribed under the Representation of People’s Act were rarely implemented in letter and spirit. As a result, there was no way a candidate’s poll expenditure could be controlled.

However, after T N Seshan took over the EC reigns, he made it mandatory for the candidates to file a statement of expenditure every day. The candidates were also required to file a separate return at the end of the elections on the total expenditure. In addition, Seshan had also deployed a team of photographers and video cameras to keep track of the contesting candidates.

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By and large, the EC’s decisions, particularly on debarring the candidates from contesting elections, rarely affected the nominees since the orders were issued for three years and the elections held after five years.

As a senior election branch official puts it, "Though they were debarred, it had no impact on the candidates. But now, it will have an adverse impact on the candidates in view of the mid-term polls."

The official also said though the orders to debar the nominees were issued last month, they were received by the State election branch only last week.