AAP in SC over delay in civic polls

New Delhi: As anticipation grows among the city's top officials over the SEC's call to defer announcing the civic polls due to the Centre's "plans of reunification", the Aam Aadmi Party has now moved the Supreme Court seeking directions to the State Election Commissioner to expeditiously conduct the Municipal Elections in Delhi in a free and fair manner.

The party alleged that the brazen influence of the Union government over the SEC and its flagrant meddling with the conduct of Municipal Elections forms the subject matter of its plea.

It said it is raising an important question of constitutional significance in its writ petition, which is: whether the SEC can be influenced by an unofficial communication from the Union government to defer Municipal Elections which the Commission was otherwise absolutely prepared to schedule and conduct.

Petitioners are exercising their right under Article 32 of the Constitution of India to correct this unconstitutional anomaly and protect the free, fair, and expeditious elections of the Municipal Corporations of Delhi, the plea filed through advocate Shadan Farasat said.

AAP — fresh from a landslide victory in Punjab — is the principal Opposition party in North, South and East MCDs, where the BJP has been in power for at least 1.5 decades.

The party sought directions to the SEC to conduct the polls according to the initially conceived schedule as decided before it received the Centre's communication, before the expiry of the tenure of the Municipal Corporations of Delhi, in May 2022.

It added that the SEC of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, set up under Article 243ZA of the Constitution of India is responsible for the free, fair, and impartial conduct of these elections under Section 7 of the 1957 Act.

It said that accordingly, the SEC has been preparing for the Delhi Municipal Elections, which it has declared in multiple notices, notifications and orders would be conducted in April 2022.

The party said that on March 9, 2022, it circulated a letter indicating its intent to hold a Press Conference at 5 pm, on the same day, to declare the specific schedule of the Municipal Elections, to be conducted in April. However, precisely half an hour before this, by way of a press note, it conveyed that it had received some communication from the Lt. Governor of Delhi, conveying that the Government of India was intending to pass legislation to merge the trifurcated Municipal Corporations of Delhi. In light of this communication, the press conference to declare the election schedule was indefinitely postponed; the Municipal Elections consequently being deferred, it said.

The plea said, "By being the sole reason behind the delay of the Municipal Elections, the Government of India is very evidently making attempts to buckle the independence of the State Election Commission and stultify free and fair Municipal Elections in Delhi.

Such insufficient reasons to postpone elections, rendering the conduct of timely elections before the expiry of the constitutionally mandated duration of the Municipal Corporations effectively impossible, clearly hampers with the sanctity of impartial elections and must be immediately stemmed by this Court, the AAP said.