{"id":68752,"date":"2020-11-05T16:42:08","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T11:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=68752"},"modified":"2021-03-04T12:48:08","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T07:18:08","slug":"power-of-election-commission-of-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/power-of-election-commission-of-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Power of Election Commission Of India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"LC20lb DKV0Md\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Electoral System of India :Power of Election Commission Of India<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong>: Power of Election commission of India to enforce poll norms and clean campaigns.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Background of the issue<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister, Kamal Nath, while campaigning for a by-election to the Madhya Pradesh Assembly recently used the derogatory word \u201citem\u201d for a BJP woman candidate.<\/li>\n<li>Following this, the ECI revoked the star campaigner status for Kamal Nath.<\/li>\n<li>The Supreme Court has recently stayed the order issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) revoking Kamal Nath\u2019s status as the star campaigner of the Congress party.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What is star campaigner status?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a privilege given to few candidates. The expenditure incurred on the campaign by those from the list of star campaigners is not included in the expenditure of the candidate concerned.<\/li>\n<li>It ensures that some leaders can charter helicopters and travel extensively to cover more territory and constituencies without breaching any individual candidate\u2019s spending limit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why the court stayed ECI\u2019s order?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Section 77 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which relates to a candidate\u2019s election expenditure, empowers the political party to decide itself who its \u201cleaders\u201d are and list of \u2018star campaigners\u2019 to the election authorities.<\/li>\n<li>It is against the right to campaign without incurring electoral expenditure on the candidates\u2019 account.<\/li>\n<li>Stating that the EC has no power to withdraw the status of star campaigner submitted by political parties the Supreme court stayed the Election Commission\u2019s order.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What were the arguments made by ECI?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The ECI has cited the clause in the MCC (non statutory) that bars candidates from resorting to \u201ccriticism of all aspects of the private life, not connected with the public activities\u201d of other leaders and party workers.<\/li>\n<li>Also, the ECI has made reference to the Supreme Court\u2019s observation that when laws are absent, the ECI can invoke its residuary power to meet an infinite variety of situations that cannot be foreseen by lawmakers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The ECI needs to be empowered to revoke the status of a campaigner, if there is an apparent breach of campaign norms or the Model Code of Conduct.<\/li>\n<li>ECI\u2019s power to enforce poll norms and clean campaigns should not be<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Electoral System of India :Power of Election Commission Of India Context: Power of Election commission of India to enforce poll norms and clean campaigns. Background of the issue Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister, Kamal Nath, while campaigning for a by-election to the Madhya Pradesh Assembly recently used the derogatory word \u201citem\u201d for a BJP woman&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/power-of-election-commission-of-india\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Power of Election Commission Of India<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230],"tags":[1331],"class_list":["post-68752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","tag-po_7","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704733142},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}