When Uddhav’s own party tied Maharashtra’s electoral hands

A forgotten 1996 amendment has come back to haunt Uddhav Thackeray, crippling the State Election Commission’s powers over local polls.

It has come to light that when the (undivided) Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition was in power, a legal provision was introduced allowing the use of Assembly electoral rolls for local body elections. Nearly three decades later, that decision has returned to haunt the Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray. During the tenure of late Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, the state legislature had amended the relevant municipal laws in 1996, deciding that the same electoral rolls prepared for the Assembly would be used for local self-government bodies. What seemed then a simple administrative measure has now emerged as a major political and constitutional headache.

As Maharashtra prepares for long-delayed local body polls, the issue of defective electoral rolls has reignited political tempers. Leaders of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) recently met the Chief Electoral Officer, S. Chokkalingam, and the State Election Commissioner, Dinesh Waghmare, to demand corrections before any election schedule is announced. They claimed that thousands of names are missing or misplaced. Waghmare’s response was that altering electoral rolls did not fall under the purview of the State Election Commission (SEC). He pointed out that it was governed by provisions that date back to 1996.

The MVA, particularly the Uddhav-led Shiv Sena (UBT), has accused the Election Commission of failing to ensure a fair process while demanding that polls to Zilla Parishads, Panchayat Samitis and municipal bodies be deferred until the lists are revised. But the problem lies not with the present SEC, but with a decision taken when the Shiv Sena and BJP were in power together. It was one that had effectively clipped the SEC’s wings.

Controversial decision

The controversy stems from Sena-BJP government’s decision in 1996 to amend The Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, 1949, and The Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888. Section 7A was inserted in the former, and Section 19B in the latter. Both stipulated that electoral rolls used for the Legislative Assembly would also serve as the rolls for municipal elections, subdivided into wards.

This change, made during Manohar Joshi’s tenure, was intended to simplify the process by saving time and costs by avoiding the preparation of a separate list for local bodies. Yet, by choosing administrative convenience over constitutional clarity, the government unwittingly stripped the SEC of the very autonomy the Constitution sought to guarantee.

The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments, enacted in 1992, gave local self-government institutions a distinct constitutional identity. Articles 243K and 243ZA specifically empowered State Election Commissions to supervise, direct and control local body elections including the preparation of electoral rolls. The spirit of these amendments was to insulate local democracy from state-level interference.

But by tying local rolls to those of the Assembly, the then government diluted that independence. The SEC could conduct elections but not decide who could vote in them.

The state did pass The State Election Commissioner (Qualification and Appointment) Act in 1994, laying down procedures for appointment, tenure and service conditions of the Commissioner. But the Act said nothing about the preparation or revision of electoral rolls.

Had Maharashtra enacted a separate law empowering the SEC to prepare and update electoral rolls, as Article 243K(4) permits, the present impasse would not exist. Instead, the 1996 amendments made the SEC dependent on the Assembly rolls prepared under the supervision of the Election Commission of India. The result is that the Commission is now responsible for conducting local elections without control over the very lists that determine their fairness.

Successive governments - the Congress-NCP coalition and the BJP-Sena as well as the erstwhile MVA - have all lived with this contradiction. None saw political advantage in changing the law. The SEC’s lack of authority suited ruling parties of every stripe, since it left local election machinery aligned with the state administration.

Uddhav’s irony

It is this legislative legacy that has now cornered Uddhav Thackeray. At a press conference this week, he accused the government of “killing” the State Election Commission. Yet, as critics pointed out, the real act of constitutional euthanasia was performed in 1996 - by the Shiv Sena-BJP government led by his own party.

By choosing to amend old municipal laws instead of enacting a new one, the Sena-led government effectively ‘killed’ the independent powers that the Constitution granted to the State Legislature and the SEC. Article 243K(4) explicitly authorises state legislatures to frame their own laws governing local polls. Maharashtra, despite being one of India’s most politically developed states, failed to do so.

Article 243K (4) clearly states that the State Legislature can make laws independently in relation to elections to local bodies. So, why was such a law not made in 1996, why was it decided to amend the existing laws and use the electoral rolls of the Legislative Assembly itself, is this a violation of the constitutional rights granted to the State Legislature?

The row over electoral rolls underscores how political expediency and administrative shortcuts can undermine constitutional design. The framers of the 73rd and 74th Amendments imagined empowered, locally accountable institutions. Instead, Maharashtra’s local democracy remains tethered to Assembly-level bureaucracy.