Opposition questions validity of zilla parishad president election

BHUBANESWAR: The BJP and the Congress questioned the validity of the election of zilla parishad (ZP) presidents after the Orissa high court on Thursday scraped the amended ZP election rules followed in their election on March 12.
The high court scrapped the March 8 order of the panchayati raj department that inserted a new section (51A) in the Odisha Zilla Parishad Election Rules, 1994, allowing political parties to appoint agents to verify votes of their party members.
Earlier, the elections were through secret ballots with nobody having access to know who voted for whom.
Addressing a news conference here, senior BJP leader Biswa Bhushan Harichandan said the fate of the ZP presidents elected on March 12 has been pushed to uncertainty since the HC found the rules followed in their election, Odisha ZP Election (Amendment) rules, 2017, invalid.
Harichandan said chief minister Naveen Patnaik should resign on moral grounds after the HC order that exposed the government's reckless initiative of amending rules in the middle of the election process.
Now any ZP member can move the court and say that there should be fresh election of ZP president since secrecy of their ballots were compromised, Harichandan said.
Congress MLA Tara Prasad Bahinipati demanded that the government must hold the ZP president election afresh since the rules followed were found to be illegal.
Leader of opposition Narasingha Mishra said the election process of ZP appears to have become null and void after the court quashed the March 8 order that allowed access to ballots by political representatives. This means the election has to be held through secret ballots as per the Odisha ZP Act, 1991.
The BJP and the Congress leaders said the government violated the Constitution by changing the rules of the game when model code of conduct is in force.
BJD MLA Divyashankar Mishra said the government may move the Supreme Court against the HC order.
"The government will examine the HC order. If needed, it may move the Supreme Court," he said. BJD managed to have its presidents in 18 districts and the BJP in 8, while the Congress retained two. Two districts, Nuapada and Malkangiri, are yet to hold elections. While the BJD won 473 of 852 zilla parishads, BJP won 297 seats.