Kerala: Chief Election Commission admits advancing code of conduct time

Thiruvananthapuram: Finally, the office of the Chief Election Commission admitted that there had been a “breach” of time restriction while imposing the Model Code of Conduct in the state for the Assembly elections in April. All the same, the office of the CEC said that the breach has “more or less become an established convention”. “There is no need to review this,” it adds. The office of the CEC, after initially brushing them aside, was responding to the submissions made by M.T. Thomas, a member of Aruna Roy-led National Campaign for People's Right to Information. As per Election Commission of India Code of Conduct, the Commission will announce a date for the election ordinarily not more than three weeks prior to the date on which the notification is likely to be issued. The date of issue of notification of the election in the state was April 22.

“Hence the CEC should have announced the date of election only three weeks prior to April 22, which is April 1. Instead, the CEC made the announcement on March 4, almost seven weeks in advance,” he said. Since the code of conduct came into force on March 4, Mr Thomas said the beneficiaries of various welfare schemes, including people suffering from terminal illness, had to wait for more than 64 days for the election to be over, for no fault of theirs. However, the Commission has taken the stand that such a breach is unavoidable.

“In standalone elections this time limit has been followed. However, when general elections to more than one state Assembly are announced together, there has been breach of this time restriction in case of notifications in later phases of election. This has been the position for the last 15 years and has more or less become an established convention,” it said. Mr Thomas, however, is not appeased. “If a breach is continuing for the last 15 years, and nobody had questioned it before, does it mean that it should be persisted with,” he asks.