MUMBAI: Amid the growing incidence of ‘unopposed’ elections in the yet-to-begin local body polls in Maharashtra, and the BJP’s announcement that it has already won 100 seats on account of this, NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule has expressed concern and termed the practice “anti-democratic”. The MP has demanded that the State Election Commission (SEC) take stringent action in cases of forcible unopposed elections.
The ‘elected unopposed’ pattern, which has suddenly emerged in the state, refers to powerful leaders using all their political clout and influence to “persuade” rival candidates to back out. An example of this was the nomination of an NCP candidate being declared void and the daughter-in-law of a leader, newly inducted into the BJP from the NCP in the Angar municipal corporation, being declared elected unopposed.
After BJP state president Ravindra Chavan announced to the media that the party had won around 100 seats even before the elections, a storm ensued, with the opposition accusing the BJP of browbeating rival candidates into backing out. Sule has now written a letter to SEC Dinesh Waghmare expressing concern about the “deeply worrying trend” and has urged SEC to ensure free and fair electoral practices at the grassroots.
“Maharashtra has always had a strong, inclusive and dialogue-based democratic tradition laid down by the late first chief minister of Maharashtra Yashwantrao Chavan, who strengthened democracy by empowering village-level institutions,” she said in her letter. “Local body elections are meant to bring forth new leadership and new energy in our democracy. However, reports from several districts show that capable candidates are being discouraged from filing nominations by using pressure tactics. This political environment is not just undemocratic, it weakens the very foundation of local self-government. In the absence of no alternative to the people, the basic spirit of local self-government will be affected and the objective of decentralisation of democracy will fail.”
Sule demanded that the SEC take the issue seriously. “Wherever complaints of pressure, use of force or any kind of improper action are received, a proper probe should be conducted and strict action should be taken,” she said.
While SEC Dinesh Waghmare refused to comment on Sule’s letter, the Maharashtra BJP’s joint chief spokesperson Ajit Chavan called it a political stunt. “Supriya Sule has the right to raise the issue,” he said. “But the SEC has nothing to do with it, as it only conducts elections. Unopposed elections are not new in the state and are part of the election process. If they happen forcibly, Sule should approach the concerned agencies to demand action. And why didn’t she question unopposed elections during the time of the Congress-NCP government in the state?”
Meanwhile, after Uddhav and Raj Thackeray, the Maharashtra Congress too has written a letter to the SEC, demanding a 15-day extension of the deadline to submit objections to the draft voter lists for the BMC polls. In a joint letter to the SEC, Congress state president Harshavardhan Sapkal, Congress Legislature Party leader Vijay Wadettiwar and legislative council group leader Satej Patil stated that in many municipal corporations, the draft voter lists had not been properly divided ward-wise, and many voters’ names had been shifted from their residential areas to other areas.