LS dissolved, now tussle over poll date

Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill, who is gearing himself to conduct what he described today as “the mother of all elections,” said he would announce the timetable after consulting all political parties. But he dropped enough hints to suggest that a mid-term poll should be held later than sooner.

However, Government sources said President K R Narayanan had agreed with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee when the latter suggested last evening that polls be held at the earliest. Legal experts consulted by the Vajpayee Government are of the opinion that if both the President and Prime Minister share the same view on the timing, the Election Commission would have little option but to go along with them.

Till the EC announces the dates, the pulls and pressures are bound to continue. This morning, for instance, worried partners of the BJP made a last-minute plea to Vajpayee to somehow avoid a mid-term poll. They are believed to have told the Prime Minister that they were being flooded with telephone calls from scared MPs in their own parties and several Opposition parties. They even promised to bring Vajpayee letters of support from the latter so that he could make out a fresh case to the President.

When Vajpayee pointed out to them that it was too late, they put up different excuses to delay polls, like heat wave conditions and marriage season in May and June in northern India.

BJP sources conceded that parties like the Shiv Sena, the Biju Janata Dal and the Samata Party are worried about the steady erosion of their vote base over the past 13 months and would like to delay the day of reckoning as much as possible.

Ironically, the Congress too holds the same view, though for different reasons. Although the party perception is that it has gained by being in Opposition, it is anxious about the impact of the sympathy factor on which the BJP hopes to cash in. Congress circles feel that a six-month stint as caretaker government would blunt this and give them a level playing field with the BJP.

The news from the Election Commission today must have raised their spirits. Explaining the logistics of conducting the elections, Gill said that the 13th Lok Sabha would have to be constituted by October 21, six months from the last date of sitting of the previous Lok Sabha.

He offered three reasons why an October poll made better sense.

One was the administrative and financial logic of clubbing together the general elections and the Assembly elections that are due in nine states between October 1999 and March 2000.

The second was the intensive campaign being conducted to update the electoral rolls, a process that would be completed only by July 20. And the third was the lack of financial resources in some states.

Earlier in the day, a communique issued by Rashtrapati Bhavan said, “It is observed that the ruling alliance lost its majority because of lack of cohesion within its friends and those who voted out the alliance showed the same disunity while trying to form an alternative government. In this situation, the President had reached the conclusion that time had arrived for the democratic will of the people to be ascertained once again, so that a government can be formed, which can confidently address the urgent needs of the people,” the four-page communique said.

Top