EC asks govt to ban candidates contesting from two seats

New Delhi: The authority of conducting elections, the Election Commission, has asked the government to introduce a demand that many quarters have been making: stop candidates from contesting from two seats.

Although this also been made as a proposal since nearly two decades ago, the EC has now made a fresh push for amending law to bar people from contesting from more than one seat and has said that if it cannot be done, then a hefty fine should be imposed on those vacating one of the constituencies and forcing a bypoll.

The contention raised by most advocates of the ban is that extra expenses are involved for conducting fresh election in the seat vacated by the candidate who wins (one cannot keep two seats), and it will put the electorate again in poll-mode for the bypoll in the vacated constituency.

In a recent interaction with the Legislative Secretary in the Law Ministry, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar made out a case in favour of the reform first proposed in 2004.

The Legislative Department is the nodal agency in the government to deal with issues related to the EC.

As electoral law stands today, a candidate is permitted to contest an election from two different constituencies in a general election or a group of bye-elections or biennial elections.

In 1996, the Representation of the People Act was amended to restrict a person from contesting polls from, more than two seats. Before the amendment, there was no bar on the number of constituencies from which a candidate could contest which some countries still allow.

The poll panel proposed amendment to certain sections in the RP Act in 2004 to provide that a person cannot contest from more than one constituency at a time.

"However, in case the existing provisions are to be retained, a candidate contesting from two seats should bear the cost of the bye-election to the seat that the contestant decides to vacate in the event of him or her winning both seats," a functionary said citing the proposal.

The amount of fine then was proposed at Rs 5 lakh for state assembly and legislative council election and Rs 10 lakh for Lok Sabha election. The poll panel now is in favour of revising the amount as appropriate.

The Law Commission, which advises government on complex legal issues and reforms, had supported the proposal of restricting candidates from more than one seat. However, it had not endorsed the Commission's alternative proposal to require winning candidates to deposit an appropriate amount of money being the expenditure for conducting the elections.

(PTI input)