EC: revised rolls to be ready by Aug 31

The Election Commission is confident that after the delimitation exercise, the revised country-wide electoral roll would be ready...

The Election Commission (EC) is confident that after the delimitation exercise, the revised country-wide electoral roll would be ready, as stipulated, by August 31, 2008. “We are reasonably satisfied with the pace of the ongoing electoral roll revision work,” Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami told The Sunday Express here on Saturday.

A revised electoral roll, mirroring the delimited constituencies across the country, is the basic pre-requisite for conducting the next Lok Sabha elections. The EC authorities are, however, not willing to say anything on whether the parliamentary elections can be clubbed with a clutch of Assembly elections, due in November-December this year. “I won’t comment on any such speculation,” said Gopalaswami.

While a vote of trust in the Manmohan Singh Government on July 22 would make the question irrelevant, the situation could get trickier if the Government falls short of numbers. The political drama, then, could play out in two different ways, point out constitutional experts.

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In the first scenario, if the Prime Minister recommends the dissolution of the House without facing the trust vote, the President may well accept the recommendation. “Their position may have been weakened after the withdrawal of the Left’s support, but the UPA Government wouldn’t want to lose the majority on the floor of the House even then and, therefore, the President may accept their recommendation,” says noted constitutional expert Subhash C Kashyap.

However, if the Manmohan Singh Government loses the trust vote, it will have no option but to resign. The President would then see if an alternative arrangement can be worked out. In the event of that being ruled out, elections would be the only way out.

The onus then shifts to the EC to have the election process completed within six months of the date of the dissolution of the House. The electoral roll revision, likely to be completed by August 31, would address the EC’s biggest concern. Considering that the six-month period from the July 22 date ends on January 22, 2009, the prospects of an all-India election with the Assembly polls cannot be ruled out, though no one is willing to come on record on this.