Poll dates: BJP has one set of rules for Modi, another for UP

In its headlong rush for early polls, many BJP leaders argued today that as per Article 174(1) of the Constitution, ‘‘six months s...

In its headlong rush for early polls, many BJP leaders argued today that as per Article 174(1) of the Constitution, ‘‘six months shall not intervene between last sitting (of the House) in one session and the date appointed for its first sitting in the next session.’’ In other words, since the last sitting of the Gujarat Assembly was April 6, the next Assembly should be in place by October 6.

What the party seems to have forgotten is that its Rajnath Singh Government—represented by no less than Attorney General Soli Sorabjee and Solicitor General Harish Salve—argued the exact opposite before the Supreme Court in October 2001.

A petition was filed by a former legislator, V M Singh, who demanded that the gap between the last sitting of the 12th Assembly of Uttar Pradesh and the first sitting of its 13th Assembly should have been less than six months.

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In its counter-affidavit, the Rajnath Singh Government interpreted Article 174(1) as follows: ‘‘The phrases ‘its last sitting in one session’ and ‘its first sitting in the next session’ relate to one and the same Assembly. This is also clear by the use of the word ‘its’ in both the above phrases.’’

‘‘It is clear,’’ the affidavit said, ‘‘that the first session of the newly constituted 13th Assembly would not be called next to the last session of the 12th Assembly within the meaning of Article 174(1) since the life of the 12th Assembly would be extinct after its dissolution.’’

The case is still pending.

All that the Representation of the People Act has to say on this matter is in its Section 15 where it says that an election notification should not be issued more than six months before the Assembly’s term is due to expire.

The only exception it provides to this bar is in the case of premature dissolution as in Gujarat today. The law imposes no limitation one way or the other on the timing of the election in the event of a dissolution.