Common Electoral Role
- The Prime Minister’s Office held a meeting with Election Commission and Law Ministry to discuss the possibility of having a common electoral roll for elections to panchayat, municipality, state assembly and Lok Sabha.
- Currently, in many Indian states, the voters’ list for the panchayat and municipality elections is different from the one used for Parliament and Assembly elections.
- This distinction arises from the fact that the supervision and conduct of elections in our country are entrusted with two constitutional bodies
- Election Commission (EC) of India and
- State Election Commissions (SECs)
- Each State Election Commission (SEC) is governed by a separate state Act.
- Few state laws allow the SEC to borrow and use the EC’s voter’s rolls for the local body elections.
- In a few states, the state commission uses the EC’s voters list as the basis for the preparation and revision of rolls for municipality and panchayat elections.
- Currently, all states, except Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Odisha, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, adopt EC’s rolls for local body polls.
- Recently a High level meeting was help in PMO to discuss the possibility of having a common electoral roll for elections to the panchayat, municipality, state assembly, and the Lok Sabha.
- In the meeting, the following two options were discussed.
- Constitutional amendment to Articles 243K and 243ZA - These provisions give the power of superintendence, direction, and control of preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of local body elections to the SECs.
- The amendment would make it mandatory to have a single electoral roll for all elections in the country.
- Tweaking State laws - To persuade the state governments to tweak their respective laws and adopt the Election Commission’s (EC) voters list for municipal and panchayat polls.
