The PIL in Supreme Court was brought by advocate and BJP spokesperson Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. Photo: Mint
New Delhi: A plea seeking a direction to the centre and Election Commission of India (EC) to take steps to use common electoral rolls for Parliament, state assembly and local body elections has been filed in the Supreme Court.
The public interest litigation (PIL), brought by advocate and Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, sought the use of a totalizer for counting votes and asked the court to direct authorities to ascertain the feasibility of holding Parliament, state assembly, panchayat and municipal elections on Sunday.
It also sought to ascertain the feasibility of using postal offices as the nodal agency for voter registration and verification as the same was endorsed by the EC, Law Commission and other expert committees on electoral reforms.
The petition cites examples of countries including Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland and Thailand, where elections are held on Sunday to enable maximum voters to participate.
The plea emphasized on the lack of a uniform law for state election commissions to prepare electoral rolls due to which some states adopt the rolls prepared by the election commission while other states prepare their rolls separately for local body elections.
“Because there is non-uniformity of practise among states, it causes duplication of the same task between two different constitutional bodies, i.e., the EC and state election commissions that entails the same effort and expenditure,” the petition stated.
It added that this creates confusion among voters, particularly the rural citizens since they may find their names present in one roll and absent in another.
