Outside observers better: Election commissioner

CHANDIGARH: The zila parishad and panchayat samiti polls slated for Monday have provided a golden opportunity to the ruling SAD-BJP alliance and the Congress to test their popularity within 15 months of the Assembly polls and also when the Lok Sabha polls are less than a year away.
But given the complaints on the misuse of authority by the ruling alliance, intervention of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to accept the papers of rejected nominees and directions of the state election commission in few cases prove that democracy at the grassroots level in the state had been vitiated by those who were part of the government.
As many as 1.51 crore rural voters would vote for 20-odd zila parishad and 141 panchayat samitis across the state in over 12,000 villages.
An interesting question comes to mind. Why the state election commission has not been as effective as the election commission of India in carrying out a fair election process? State election commissioner AK Dubey said," Unlike in the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls, in this case my feedback is from observers drawn from the state government and so the quality of perception and reaction is different from observers from another state appointed by the ECI in the General Election."
Dubey favoured at least one observer from outside the state in each district for panchayati raj insitutions to make elections more free and fair. Moreover, he said the state election panel had skeletal staff with only a part-time secretary, besides poor infrastructure and inadequate funds because for all grants it has to approach the government." What sort of autonomy it can enjoy?", he asked, adding that for the time being it���s almost a one-man show. "I have to check if a paper has been faxed or not and chase every file," he quipped.
However, Dubey claimed that the election commission had done its job despite such limitations.
But when asked why the candidates had to rush to court when their papers were wrongly rejected, which permitted them interim relief, he said the returning officers had rejected these and given reasons thereof against which the candidates could file election petition. "I was not able to act in these cases for lack of jurisdiction," he asserted.