Mumbai: The state bypolls for three seats in Rajya Sabha (RS) finds itself embroiled in a legal battle. The Shiv Sena has challenged the Election Commission of India decision to hold separate elections for every seat instead of holding it togetherin the Supreme Court. The RS elections are scheduled on August 10.
The Sena feels the decision of a separate election to every seat will give Congress-NCP mileage to corner all three seats as they outnumber the Sena-BJP in terms of arithmetic in the 288-member state assembly. Whereas, if the elections for all three seats take place together the Sena-BJP together can muster more than 100 MLAs' support to win one seat out of the three. The Sena suspects political motive behind such a move to favour the Congress-NCP.
The by-elections for RS is necessitated following vacancies after union civil aviation minister Praful Patel, Supriya Sule (NCP) and Mukul Wasnik (Congress) shifted to Lok Sabha from the RS after the parliament polls.
The notification for the RS by-polls is likely to be issued on Thursday coinciding with the hearing in the apex court on the petition filed by Sena candidate Rahul Narwekar.
Narwekar has stated: "The three vacancies are from the same category as the term of all three seats will expire on the same day April 2, 2012. Therefore, three vacancies should be filled by holding one election." It also emphasises how in the past the Election Commission has conducted one elections to fill these three seats in 2006."
According to the petition, "If separate elections are conducted it will defeat the objective of article 80(4) Constitution of India which advocates representation of every group in RS shall be in accordance to the strength of representation in their respective state legislation. It means proportionate representation."
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