The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to stay the panchayat elections in Punjab scheduled for the same day, Live Law reported.
The bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud agreed to list a plea mentioned before it for urgent hearing but said that the polls could not be stayed as the election process had commenced.
“Tomorrow someone will say stay the parliamentary elections once polling opens, can you imagine the consequences?” asked Chandrachud.
On Monday, the Punjab and Haryana High Court vacated its earlier stay order restricting the polls in about 200 gram panchayats in Punjab and dismissed about 1,000 pleas alleging irregularities in the nomination phase.
The High Court had earlier stayed the elections in parts of Punjab over a “blatant abuse of power” by the state’s Aam Aadmi Party government.
The Congress on Monday demanded that the polls be postponed for at least three weeks due to concerns of “administrative mishandling and the deprivation of numerous candidates of their right to participate” by the state government.
Partap Singh Bajwa, the leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly, led a delegation that met the state election commissioner and submitted a representation seeking to delay the polls in more than 13,000 gram panchayats.
He urged the Election Commission to consider postponing the polls “for a more organised and equitable process”, given the “widespread reports of clashes, administrative mishandling, and the deprivation of numerous candidates of their right to participate”.
“We suspect that Aam Aadmi Party people are getting printed fake ballot papers,” Bajwa alleged after the meeting. “In every village, they are getting 100 fake ballot papers published per 1,000 votes in every booth and are instructing their supporters to submit two such fake ballot papers along with their vote.”
Bajwa pointed out that there have been violent clashes and reports of coercion had emerged from Makhu, Tarn Taran, Moga, Ferozepur and Fazilka, among other parts of Punjab. He accused the Aam Aadmi Party workers of attacking Congress supporters and said that in some cases, prospective candidates’ nomination papers were snatched away.
The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party are partners in the INDIA bloc at the national level.
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