It refers to welcome filing of a Public-Interest-Litigation (PIL) in Supreme Court by BJP spokesperson Ashwini Upadhayaya, pleading to ban contesting elections by an individual from more than one seat since a person cannot represent more than one seat at a time. Not only this, even contesting for both Lok Sabha and State-Assembly should be banned, as a person cannot be simultaneously member of both Lok Sabha and State-Assembly. System if implemented will save huge on unnecessary by-polls needed because of a person winning from more than one seat or both for Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha.
Also a sitting Parliamentarian or state-legislator should first resign from his-her earlier seat before filing nomination for other seat in Parliament or state-legislature. There must be auto-termination of Parliament membership on a Parliamentarian taking oath as minister (or Chief Minister) in a state and vice-versa etc. to prevent incident like Atal Bihari Vajpayee government losing by single controversial vote of the then Orissa Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang. All such simple poll reforms must not be further delayed in name of waiting for never-to-be achieved political consensus. Central government should take urgent-most steps even before forthcoming polls for some state-assemblies without even waiting for Supreme Court verdict.
Subhash Chandra Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
