Municipal Corporation of Delhi secretary recommends fresh standing committee election
Citing reasons for his recommendation, Singh said the secretariat is not aware of how many councillors have cast their votes as many members just kept the ballot papers with them
The pitched battles in the House during the elections to the six members of the MCD standing committee on Wednesday and Thursday have badly bruised the sanctimony of the election process, and the polls should be held afresh, the top municipal secretariat official said in a letter to Delhi mayor Shelly Oberoi.
Bhagwan Singh, the municipal secretary, was referring to the chaos and violence during the nearly 24-hour session of the MCD House that began on Wednesday and continued till Thursday morning.
Citing reasons for his recommendation, Singh said the secretariat is not aware of how many councillors have cast their votes as many members just kept the ballot papers with them. Fifty-five ballot papers were distributed to the councillors before the tussle over the mayor’s direction allowing members to carry their mobile phones inside the polling booth began on Wednesday evening.
“During the entire melee, the ballot box had to be removed to safety and members who could not vote till then pocketed their ballot paper. The sanctimony of the election process has been badly bruised.....It is important that the election process should now begin afresh,” Singh said in his letter to the mayor.
The BJP members had protested the mayor’s decision and when she withdrew it and ordered resumption of polling, they asked that the entire process should be repeated, with distribution of new ballot papers. BJP councillor Shikha Rai had said that allowing phones and clicking pictures amounts to violation of secret ballot process. “We demand the mayor to hold the elections afresh for all six standing committee seats,” said Rai.
Oberoi, however, said that there are no legal grounds for repeating the entire process. During the proceedings on Wednesday, she said, “How can we invalidate the votes cast in the House? And do we have any solid legal grounds for claiming that the votes cast in the box up to this point were invalid? Even during the MCD elections that took place in December last year, the notification issued by the State Election Commission said that voters can carry their phones to the polling booths,” she said.
To be sure, councillors were not allowed to carry their phones during the elections for the posts of mayor and deputy mayor. Leader of the House and AAP councillor Mukesh Goel had insisted that besides mobile phones, pens should also not be permitted inside the voting booth.
Even as the mayor has announced to hold the elections on Friday, the municipal secretariat has said that since BJP member Amit Nagpal tore a bunch of ballot papers early Thursday morning, they need to publish a new set of ballot papers. Singh, in his letter to the mayor, also said that MCD office will require time for printing 300 new ballot papers.
Retired MCD chief law officer Anil Gupta said that according to the House rules the secret ballot process is mandatory for elections. “If someone even makes a mark on the ballot paper which can lead to identification of that ballot with a member, it is declared invalid. If a picture of the ballot paper is clicked, it may lead to identification and that’s why phones are barred inside the booth. The election has always been conducted by the secret ballot and mobile phones cant be allowed,” he added.
On Thursday, the mayor had warned of action against Nagpal and Rekha Gupta for unruly behaviour. Gupta, who was BJP’s mayor candidate, said the mayor should take responsibility of the “inhuman conditions” that the women councillors faced on Wednesday night. “What was the emergency to hold the House for entire night. If mayor conducted the elections of the deputy mayor with the restriction on mobile phones, why did she suddenly change the rule during the standing committee elections?” she said.
