MP RS election once again exposes the fault lines | N.D.Sharma

Published on 02-04-2008 In National

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MP RS election once again exposes the fault lines

Samajwadi Party MLA of Madhya Pradesh Kishore Samrite, who had created a ruckus by complaining to the police and the Election Commission that the Congress had paid him Rs ten lakh for voting for Congress-supported independent Rajya Sabha candidate Vivek Tankha and had enumerated several reasons why he would not vote for the former Advocate-General, eventually voted for Tankha. It's a different matter that Tankha could not win as the BJP succeeded in luring the eight MLAs of smaller parties on whose support Tankha and the Congress were primarily banking. The BJP got all its three candidates through.

A day after the Rajya Sabha polling, the Bhopal police registered an FIR against former minister and now PCC treasurer N.P.Prajapati who, according to Samrite's complaint, had driven to the MLA Rest House and handed over to Samrite ten bundles of Rs one lakh each (all in Rs-1000 denomination). Samrite had deposited the amount at the police station, along with his written complaint, the same night.

There were rumours of crores of rupees changing hands. This, though, is not easy to prove. However, certain covert activities of the non-BJP and non-Congress MLAs provide more than a broad hint of what was going on. Samrite, for instance, had become a darling of the BJP leaders in the State. A day before the polling, he had a long meeting with chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan at the chief minister's residence. After that he decided to go along with six other Samajwadi Party MLAs and vote for Tankha.

JD (U) MLA Saroj Bachan had all along been with the BJP. A day before the polling, she had a meeting with Leader of the Opposition Jamuna Devi at the latter's residence and the word was spread that she would cast her lot with the Congress and vote for Tankha. However, she supported the BJP candidate ultimately. The Congress was "hoping" to get the votes of the four BJP MLAs who were suspended from the party for siding with Uma Bharati four years ago. On the eve of the polling, the BJP revoked their suspension. That is public knowledge. What would never be known officially was the price they had extracted for being "loyal" to the party.

Hard bargaining was reported for several days before the polling. This was not confined to the non-Congress and non-BJP MLAs only. With only a few months of the present Assembly remaining, some of the ruling party MLAs were also said to be prepared to face the party's wrath if only they could get the proper price. The Congress apparently failed to act on time, as is evident by the hush-hush blame-game among Congress leaders for "mismanagement" of the campaign for Tankha.

Over the past few decades the use of money power had been more visible in Rajya Sabha elections than in other elections. It had led to a nationwide debate about eight years ago when both the BJP, then the main partner in the ruling alliance, and the Congress had expressed deep concern about this and felt an urgent need for electoral reforms. BJP spokesman M. Venkaiah Naidu was of the view that the Rajya Sabha election trends tended to make the Upper House a place of money power as a vulgar display of money power was too much in evidence in the (Rajya Sabha) elections.

The Congress, then in the opposition, had naturally blamed the BJP for the rise of money power.

The debate had thrown up several suggestions for reforming the election law. But the two major political parties, the BJP and the Congress, just decided to amend the law in respect of only two points. One was to legitimise the fraud committed by top politicians, including Manmohan Singh, Lal Krishna Advani, Hansraj Bhardwaj and Sushma Swaraj, to enter Rajya Sabha. Only a person "ordinarily residing" in a State was eligible for contesting Rajya Sabha election from that State. Manmohan Singh acquired some residence in Guwahati to seek election to Rajya Sabha from Assam. Hansraj Bhardwaj purchased a house in Indore, Sushma Swaraj in Bhopal while Advani got himself registered as a voter in Gwalior and they all entered Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh. This was a clear fraud on the law which defines the "ordinarily resident" in the following words: "A person shall not be deemed to be ordinarily resident in a constituency on the ground only that he owns, or is in possession of, a dwelling house therein".

As these changes were not really acceptable in courts of law, the BJP-led NDA government, with the acquiescence of the Congress, amended the law to remove the condition of being "ordinarily resident" of a State for contesting Rajya Sabha election from that State. The other amendment said "the provisions of this sub-section (for maintaining secrecy of the ballot) shall not apply to such officer, clerk, agent or other person who performs any such duty at an election to fill a seat or seats in the Council of States". These patchwork amendments have not been able to check the money power as was seen in the March 28 Rajya Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh.

The Bhopal police registered belatedly an FIR against Prajapati on the basis of the complaint made by Samrite. The record of the Madhya Pradesh police in investigations of politically sensitive cases is horrendous. Incidentally, the Bhopal Superintendent of Police, who has ordered registration of the FIR, is the same officer who was the head of the Ujjain district police when Prof. Sabharwal was beaten to death allegedly by ABVP activists in the presence of the police. As the prosecution witnesses were turning hostile one after the other, the Supreme Court was constrained to transfer the trial of the Sabharwal murder case from the Ujjain court to a Nagpur court.

A silver lining in the present case is that both, Samrite and the Congress, have involved the Election Commission in the alleged malpractices. Samrite has complained to the Election Commission that former Congress minister N.P.Prajapati had paid him Rs ten lakh for voting for Congress-supported independent candidate Vivek Tankha while another former Congress minister Rajendra Singh had promised him another Rs 15 lakh after Samrite had cast his vote. Congress leader Jamuna Devi has complained to the Election Commission about the BJP's alleged use of money power. The Election Commission, always so keen for holding free and fair elections, should take the complaints seriously and hold or order a thorough inquiry into the allegations with a view to bringing the culprits to book.

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