Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 29: Once beaten, twice shy. Having been forced to retract the poll schedules for the Lakshadweep Lok Sabha constituency after the Kerala High Court suspended the jail sentence of the sitting member Mohammad Faizal, the Election Commission has avoided a repetition of a possible similar fiasco in case of Wayanad.
Though highly expected, Wayanad constituency in Kerala, which fell vacant due to the disqualification of Rahul Gandhi following his conviction by the Surat sessions court in the “Modi surname” case, was not included in the list of by-elections for the vacant seats to go with the Karnataka state Assembly elections.
The chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Wednesday announced the poll schedule for Karnataka, polling on May 10 and counting of votes on May13, and the by-elections for the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency to go with it, but Wayanad was not included.
All vacancies till February 2023 have been cleared, the poll body said. “We have cleared vacancies till February. Wayanad vacancy was notified in March. A 30-day period has been given for appeal. We are not in a hurry,” Kumar told reporters. He cited the Representation of People Act, 1951, to say by-polls need to be held within six months of any vacancy.
The Congress had prepped for a legal battle if the Election Commission had announced by-poll dates for Wayanad. The Congress said it would have challenged the poll body if it had announced elections before Rahul Gandhi’s appeal and a decision on it which was expected in a day or two.
Rahul Gandhi was disqualified on Friday, a day after a Surat court convicted him in a defamation case filed by a BJP leader and sentenced him to two years in prison. The Congress leader has 30 days to appeal the sentence. If the sentence is put on hold, Rahul Gandhi will get his Lok Sabha membership back, the Congress says. The Representation of the People Act, 1951, says that anyone convicted of an offence and sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more stands disqualified.
Incidentally, Faizal, who belonged to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), was restored his Lok Sabha seat on Wednesday. The Lok Sabha Secretariat on Wednesday issued a notification stating that his disqualification has ceased to operate subject to further judicial pronouncements. He was disqualified invoking provisions of Article 102 (1)(e) of the Constitution read with Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Following his reinstatement as an MP, the Supreme Court disposed of his petition challenging his disqualification.
Faizal was disqualified by the Lok Sabha Secretariat through a notification issued on January 13 after he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in an attempt to murder case by the Kavaratti District and Sessions court. However, the Kerala High Court suspended the conviction and sentence on January 25.
Faizal claims that a false case was registered against him in 2016 over allegations of an attempt to murder a relative of former Union Minister PM Sayeed during the 2009 elections. The NCP leader was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2019, in the middle of his trial. He was sentenced along with three others on January 11. Two days later, the Lok Sabha Secretariat sent him a disqualification notice.
On January 18, the Election Commission announced polls to Mr Faisal’s Lakshadweep seat on January 27. Two days before the polls, the Kerala High Court suspended Faizal’s sentence, forcing the Election Commission to withhold the by-election. Sources said the poll body wanted to avoid a similar retreat in the case of Wayanad.
Faizal had challenged the Lok Sabha secretariat’s “unlawful action” in not withdrawing his disqualification as an MP, more than two months after his sentence was put on hold. On January 30, Sharad Pawar met with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, to request him to revoke his party leader’s disqualification.
Faizal dubbed the restoration of his membership as an encouraging sign for Rahul Gandhi who stands disqualified as Wayanad MP. “I can confidently say that Rahul Gandhi will be back in the House once he gets the conviction stayed by the court,” Faizal said.