NEW DELHI: The government has dropped the proposal to bring in legislation to debar secessionists from contesting in the Punjab elections promised to be held in February.
“The first indication of this came last week when the list of Bills scheduled to be taken pin the winter session of Parliament was announced. There was no mention of the anti-secessionist Bill in that list.
Sources in the home ministry confirm that the proposal was dropped on legal advice. The government instead proposes to rely on politico-administrative measures, sources added. “The minister of state for home, M.M.Jacob, is scheduled to visit Punjab by this month end, This will be the first high level visit of the home ministry, which has already changed the governors advisers and recalled K.P.S.Gill o the state as the chief of the police.
THE RATIONALE: When the Congress party boycotted the Punjab elections attempted earlier this year, is rationale was that its participation under the present law would lend Legitimacy to the militants efforts to convert the poll into a referendum on Khalistan “Therefore the Congress government sought to devise a law to compel all the candidates in Punjab to take an oath while filing their nominations that they would not advocate secession in their election campaign. Any violation of the oath, it was proposed, would lead to summary disqualification of the candidate conceded.
The existing system also mandates an oath to abide by the Constitution butt is meant to be taken only after the elections by the victorious candidates on joining the House.
Sources reveal that the proposal regarding Punjab to make even the candidates take an cath has been dropped because of Constitutional and practical reasons.
They Constitution will not permit any such discrimination between the candidates in Punjab and the rest of the country.
Further, it will note easy to keep track of how exactly each candidate and his supporters are campaigning. it was also feared that the law might only encourage the candidates to inundate the election staff with complaints against each other.
The Prime Minister, P.V Narasimha Rao, has in the run up to the by elections spoken of making another kind of amendment to the law to prevent no serious candidates to come up with it shortly so that it could be used for the Punjab election.
But there is as yet no sign of it. Sources say that if the legislation is not ready on time, the government may issue an ordinance after the session if the Punjab elections are going to be held as promised in February.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 29, 1991
