Activist seeks postponement of MLC elections

Complaining about extremely low registration of voters in Pune, Nagpur and Aurangabad graduates’ and teachers’ constituencies, a political activist from Pune has

Complaining about extremely low registration of voters in Pune, Nagpur and Aurangabad graduates’ and teachers’ constituencies, a political activist from Pune has moved the Bombay high court (HC), seeking postponement of elections to the Maharashtra state Legislative Council (MLC) from these constituencies.

HT Image

Laxman Chavan, president of Prajasattak Bharat Paksha, has also sought a direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to not hold the elections till at least 50℅ of graduates from these constituencies are registered as voters.

In Maharashtra, of the total 78 members of the Legislative Council, 31 are elected by members of the Legislative Assembly, 21 by elected representatives from local authorities, 12 are nominated by the Governor, and seven each are elected by graduates and teachers from Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Konkan, Aurangabad, Nagpur, and Amravati divisions.

In the public interest litigation (PIL) filed through advocate Asim Sarode, Chavan pointed out that on September 5, 2016, ECI has issued clear instructions to all chief electoral officers to take special efforts to ensure that every eligible person is duly enrolled. They were ordered to facilitate the online filing of application forms, give wide publicity to the process of revision of electoral rolls, and set up special counters for collection of applications. Besides, they were also instructed to use voter registration centres for Assembly elections to get voters enrolled for the Council elections.

Chavan complained that these instructions are not being followed in Maharashtra because of which the ratio of registered voters to the population of the constituencies has remained abysmally low.

His petition offered Pune graduates’ constituency as an example. The population of the constituency, which comprises all five districts of Western Maharashtra, is 2.34 crore, including 1.94 crore educated individuals. However, the number of registered voters here is as low as 3.08 lakh – 1.58 ℅ of the total population.

Similarly, in Nagpur constituency, barely 1.22 lakh graduates (1.23 ℅ of the total population) of 1.17 crore are registered as voters. In Aurangabad constituency, the percentage of voters is 2.48℅. Here, 3.55 lakh graduates are registered as voters, against the total population of 1.87 crore, with 1.43 crore educated individuals.

The PIL adds that in 2014 when elections were held in these three constituencies, only in Nagpur, 60.14℅ of the registered voters exercised their right to vote. Aurangabad and Pune constituencies recorded a very low turnout of 34.03 ℅ and 25.78℅, respectively.

Chavan also complained that hardly any efforts are made to ensure voter registration for graduates’ and teachers’ constituencies, whereas revision of voter lists for Assembly elections is almost a continuous process.

He added that for the forthcoming elections, new applications were invited in January but the final list has not been published yet, despite the terms of the elected members from the three graduates’ constituencies coming to an end in July.

The PIL is scheduled to come up for hearing today.