New Delhi: Amid the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) sweep of local body polls in the Union Territory (UT) of Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, the Congress is considering its next steps. It has accused the BJP of “hijacking” the elections, alleging that 80% of Congress candidates’ nominations as well as nominations of several independent candidates were rejected at the scrutiny stage.
The Congress candidates may approach the Election Commission of the UTs or the Bombay High Court with an election petition. Such a petition challenges the validity of an election, and can be filed in the high court of the state in which the election was conducted.
“We may have to go to the Election Commission first, because last time the high court had asked the petitioners if they had done that. The high court had also noted that they will file a petition after the whole election process,” AICC secretary and co-incharge of Goa, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Dr Anjali Nimbalkar told ThePrint.
“I think we may try to simultaneously approach both,” she said.
The BJP swept the local elections, winning 15 of 16 seats in Daman district panchayat, 14 of 15 seats in Daman municipal council and 15 of 16 sarpanch posts. In Diu, the BJP won all 8 seats in the district panchayat polls. In Dadra & Nagar Haveli, it won 24 of 26 seats in district panchayat elections, and all 15 seats in the municipal council. The party won 91 of 122 seats uncontested.
The BJP has credited its “grand victory” to the party’s “good governance”. However, the Congress has claimed the election was “hijacked” during the scrutiny process.
“Rahulji (Gandhi) is talking about ‘vote chori’ (vote theft). They have started doing ‘election chori’ from local body elections now. The whole process was rigged and hijacked in Dadra & Nagar Haveli, and Daman & Diu,” Nimbalkar said.
Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu announced elections for the gram panchayat and district panchayats within the UT on 10 October. The last date for submission of nominations was 17 October, and 18 October was the date of scrutiny of nominations. Voting took place on 5 November.
Two petitions were filed in the Bombay High Court on 27 October this year, challenging the rejection of nominations filed by four independent candidates, alleging violation of fundamental rights. The petitions were filed against the returning officers, Election Commission for UTs, UT administration, and the Election Commission of India.
A day before the poll day, on 5 November, a division bench of the high court had disposed of the petitions, noting the submission made by the respondents—returning officers as well as the UT administration—that the written rejection orders for nominations will be served on the petitioners within 15 days.
The respondents also claimed that a written order was offered to the petitioners, but they refused to accept it. In response, the petitioners’ lawyers had submitted that they may prefer an election petition.
Also Read: Amid ‘fake voter’ row, Maharashtra EC moves ahead with civic polls, promises electoral roll cleanup
‘Mismanagement and chaos’
One of the petitions was filed by Vaishaliben Patel and Dharmeshbhai Sureshbhai Gimbhal, while the second was filed by Asmitaben Sandip Boba and Sanvaji Janya Garel. All were independent candidates for the gram panchayat wards in Dadra & Nagar Haveli.
They had submitted their nomination forms to contest for the sarpanch elections across gram panchayat wards in the UT.
They alleged that they were “arbitrarily denied the opportunity to contest and represent their respective Gram Panchayat as Sarpanch”.
The petitions, seen by ThePrint, allege that the office of the Election Commission for UTs was closed on 11 and 12 October, resulting in no inquiries being made on the filing of formalities and supporting documents. They say that on 14 October, the commission introduced further documents which were required to be submitted along with the nomination forms.
This “delay” on the part of the commission, and the UT agencies’ inability to supply relevant documents, they say, truncated the actual period of filing nomination papers to the last three dates, from 15 to 17 October.
“The respondents failed to make proper and adequate arrangements for conducting the nomination process in a systematic, uniform and civilised manner. Due to lack of proper planning, there was complete mismanagement and chaos during the submission of nomination papers,” they alleged.
The petitions claim that even though the petitioners submitted their nomination papers attaching all documents, their nomination was rejected without giving them any opportunity to rectify the purported errors. They submitted they were able to confirm the rejection of their nomination only after the final list of nominated candidates was published without their names in it.
The candidates then wrote a representation to the respective returning officer on 25 October, requesting them to provide certified copies of the order of rejection of their nomination.
‘Highly suspicious’
Apart from the problems mentioned in the petitions, Nimbalkar pointed out other inconsistencies in the scrutiny of nomination forms submitted by Congress candidates.
“When the day of the scrutiny arrived, the candidates were first called at the places where they had filed the nominations. After a few hours, they were informed that the scrutiny was taking place at the Collectorate office instead. None of the elections are haphazardly handled this way,” she said.
By the time the candidates reached the Collectorate, the candidates were informed that the time for scrutiny was over and that their forms had been rejected.
“There were allegations that there were no signatures on a few forms. It is highly suspicious. How can a form be received without the candidate’s signature? So, in the municipal elections, out of 15, 14 forms of ours were rejected,” Nimbalkar told ThePrint.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: Kerala local body polls: Congress bets on early start, mix of young & old faces to revive its base