The Hindu : Poll under ballot system

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 21, 2002

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Poll under ballot system
By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, FEB. 20. Notwithstanding the uncertainty over the manner in which the elections for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi are held, the State Election Commission (SEC) is understood to be gearing up to conduct the elections under the system where rotation of seats has been frozen.

Further, it is unlikely that the electronic voting machines (EVMs) would be used and the electorates would have to exercise their voting rights through the traditional ballot.

Insiders in the Election office said all arrangements are being made to hold the polls under the notification issued by the Union Home Ministry which has frozen rotation of seats for 10 years. The SEC is expected to announce start of the poll process in the next few days.

``Once the election notification is issued, it will become difficult to implement the High Court order on the issue of freezing of seats as there would not be enough time left and the poll process would be on,'' highly placed sources said.

Officials engaged in poll preparations also pointed out that the Court had refused to give a stay on the petition challenging the Home Ministry notification. It reserved the judgment, they said.

``As of now we are proceeding ahead for conducting the polls as per the existing laws. This means, there would be no rotation of seats and the Councillors can re-contest on their seats. There is no doubt about it,'' sources said.

Giving details, officials said about 79 lakhs electorate would exercise their rights to elect 134 Councillors. More than 50,000 officials would be deployed at 9,500 polling booths.

However, people of the Capital would not be able to exercise their voting right through EVMs as SEC would be using the ballot papers and boxes. Highly popular all over the country, EVMs were used in the Capital for the first time during the 1998 Assembly elections in five constituencies. During the last Lok Sabha elections in 1999, EVMs were used for the entire Capital.

Officials said as the elections were earlier scheduled in February simultaneously with the Assembly elections in Punjab, Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur, the Election Commission had refused to provide EVMs for the Capital.

``Further the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act has provisions for ballot papers. The requisite amendments could have been made through ordinance and also the EVMs made available. But, as we have made all the necessary preparations accordingly, we will go for ballot papers,'' officials said.

Sources said the requisite papers and stationary material have already been purchased and a large number of ballot boxes are on their way. ``Most of them are coming from Rajasthan and Chandigarh where the civic polls were held recently with ballot papers,'' they said.

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