Vandana Das Bill— Will Tharoor bat for the Patients too?

The Kerala Government recently enacted an amendment to the Kerala Healthcare Service Persons and Healthcare Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage to Property) Act that prohibits violence against healthcare service persons and seeks to prevent damage and loss to property in health care service institutions.

Patients

Now, Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram, is moving a similar legislation as private members’ Bill in Parliament, nicknamed Vandana Das Bill.

These legislation are unnecessary and in certain respects negate equality before law, enshrined in the Constitution.

It is notable that the Centre had proposed a similar legislation in 2019. However, after obtaining public opinion, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare decided to dump the legislation. The Home Ministry, during inter-ministerial consultations over it, had stated that there cannot be a separate legislation to protect members of a particular profession, according to news reports in 2022.

Dismissing the need for a separate law to check violence against members of a specific profession, the Home Ministry said there should be no specific law for a particular profession, and the Indian Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code were sufficient to deal with it.

It noted that over the time, members of other fraternity like lawyers and police might also demand for an exclusive law to safeguard their interests.

Though the Ministry did not say so, other groups such as journalists too could make such demands.

On a higher pedestal:
The enacted and proposed legislation place health service persons on a distinct legal position higher than the ordinary citizens. This is similar to prescriptions in Manusmriti that granted Brahmins elevated legal status. Indian Constitution does not recognise such treatment. In normal jurisprudence, a crime committed under emotional stress attracts lower punishment than a pre-meditated crime.

The parent Kerala Act was enacted back in 2012, following protests by doctors. The present amendment was to enhance period of imprisonment and fine and include more categories of health care personnel under the protection of the law. They included security personnel who, in many cases, are outsourced by the hospitals. There is also the provision that the offender shall pay the health care service institution twice the amount of purchase price of medical equipment damaged and loss caused to the property as compensation. It is not clear why the health care service institution should get such a compensation which is not available to other institutions. Even if old or non-working equipment is damaged, it may be possible to recover such damages and this could lead to misuse of the legislation.

It is notable that the Kerala Amendment (enacted as an Ordinance with Bill to replace it before the Kerala Assembly now) was brought against the background of tragic murder of a young doctor Vandana Das at Kottarakkara Taluk Hospital by a patient, brought in by the police. The motive was not clear and it was suspected that the assailant was mentally unstable or addicted. The only thing was that the crime took place in a hospital.

Dr. Tharoor also cites this incident in his statement of objects and reasons for his Bill. The narrative is bogus. Dr. Tharoor is just cashing in on the protests by doctors and public sympathy for the family of the deceased. The incident took place basically because the police, security staff or others failed or did not care to restrain the attacker who was using just scissors for the attack. It was not related to an issue over treatment.

Enforcement is the key
Legislators often propose special legislation and enhanced punishment, for crimes that attract public protests or concern, to deflect attention from failures on the enforcement front. Though the Kerala Act was in force since 2012, it is said that hardly any successful prosecution had taken place so far, and the cases of violence against health personnel are on the increase.  So, the political ploy to neutralise public concerns is to bring new legislation or increase of the quantum of punishments. Examples to this are the Goonda Act and modification of the law and quantum of punishment for sexual violence against women. However, goondaism or violence against women has not come down.

Exploitation of patients
Violence against hospital staff have increased against the background of increasing exploitation of patients by hospitals. If indeed special legislation is needed for healthcare personnel, what the government and Dr. Tharoor should answer is why similar special legislation is not being proposed for protection of patients also. Recently, the High Court had ordered arraignment of several doctors after the court found evidence that a patient was left to his death by the doctors for harvesting of his organs.  

It is not easy for patients or their relatives to bring doctors to book in such cases or medical negligence. In this case, it became possible because a doctor came forward to exposes that and several other cases. The number of cases he is citing is not small.

A patient in ICU or in the operation theatre is highly vulnerable. Enhanced punishments had been specified for sexual crimes by those in authority. Is not similar provisions needed in the case of doctors and nurses too for wilful negligence or trafficking in human organs, stem cells or embryos?

Link to original Act: https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/12382?view_type=browse&sam_handle=123456789/2516

Much ado about data privacy of voters list

Operation Twins

The CPI (M) has accused Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala of leaking data on voters and publishing them on a server located in Singapore. However, the accusation does not hold water in the face off facts.

Mr. Chennithala had published data on 4.34 lakh persons in the voters’ lists for the upcoming Kerala Assembly Elections, whose photos appear under different names in the same constituency or other constituencies or whose names appear more than once in the lists, on the site operationtwins.com. Voters’ lists are data in the public domain, so no leak has taken place.

Voters list is not sensitive data under the IT Act and Rules unlike health information which is defined as sensitive (recall the controversy over Springler).   Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules, 2011 also has a proviso to Section 3 that says that “any information that is freely available or accessible in public domain or furnished under the Right to Information Act, 2005, or any other law for the time being in force  shall  not  be  regarded  as  sensitive  personal  data  or  information  for  the  purposes  of  these rules”.

It is true that the Web server is located in Singapore. However, that does not alter the legal position. Voters list is data officially published under the law and accessible in public domain.

The only thing that you can accuse the Opposition Leader is that there are some errors in his list of bogus voters. Besides, he was not honest enough to include some duplicate entries of Congress candidates and their relatives in the list. Possibly because of limitations of photo matching, the names of twins have been flagged as duplicate entries, with operation twins thus causing some heartburn to real twins. While a chunk of data point to fraud, other duplicate entries could be the result of failure of the officials to delete previous entries when voter requests change of address or corrections.  It is clear that sufficient diligence had not been shown by electoral officers.

Mr. Chennithala has chosen to register a domain with commercial extension for the site and keeping the registrant information private. He could have chosen extensions (top level domains) like .in or .org.in. But it is a matter that hinge on availability/personal choice/ignorance. The person who registered the site probably did not register the site in the name of Mr. Chennithala and wanted to keep his name private.

It may also be noted that the accusations against Mr. Chennithala comes when there is demand for publishing of more data relating to electoral process internationally by organisations like the Open Election Data Initiative. So, Mr. Chennithala’s initiative is setting up a site to expose electoral malpractices is laudatory.

In fact, Mr. Chennithala has been raising a number of allegations against the LDF government. If even a fraction of them are correct, that do not bode well for the State. If the LDF is re-elected to power, the government would be at the mercy of Central agencies. This can give rise to deals between the CPI (M) and the BJP or even instability of the government.

However, this may not be a problem for Chief Minister Pinarai Vijayan to manage for he has already taken a few leaves from Modi’s note book to retain power and pelf.

Duplicate entries in voters list is a massive fraud

Lakhs of duplicate names and fake entries in the voters list for Legislative Assembly elections in Kerala is a massive fraud on the people of the State.

The initial estimates are that the number of duplicate entries, which can be used for voting by impersonation, is above four lakhs. There is also the allegation that migrant workers had been enlisted without following procedure and checking their status properly.

It is surprising that the electoral officers had not cared to check for duplicate entries at least in the same constituency not to speak of duplicate entries across constituencies. This is when computer technologies these days make it easy to find duplicate entries, though Malayalam script and variations may make it a little difficult than in English.

The existence of large number of duplicate entries came to public knowledge when Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala raised the issue and accused the ruling front of complicity. Apparently, he had been assisted by someone skilled in analysis and comparing of large chunks of data.

It is not surprising that the things have come to such a pass, given the lackadaisical manner in which the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Kerala, handled data. This had not started in recent years. As back as in the nineties, total votes polled and the sum of the votes polled by individual candidates did not tally in certain cases. In one of the election reportage, published by the ECI, the numbers did not tally in more than 25 constituencies. Though this was brought to the notice of the CEO, he did not correct them and they still remain as the official tally. By 1996, computers came into use in compiling data and the figures. Data, which could not be validated, were artificially tallied by adjusting invalid and uncounted votes.

In the 2016 Assembly elections, some data in the Constituency data summary, officially released by the Election Commission (especially that of electors and votes polled), do not match with the detailed results published by ECI. There were also variations with detailed results published on the Web at the time of announcement of results.

The CEO’s Office has been reluctant to release computer-processable data, which can be used for data validation, despite an order by the State Information Commission under the RTI Act. (The accompanying image shows the operative part of the order of the Commission dated May 29 last year which is yet to be complied with). These were symptoms of deeper malady.

Despite all the improvement of communication facilities, the CEO office often has not been able to come out with correct percentage of polling on the polling day itself. The number of electors supplied before and after polling often varied as last minute enrollments and deletions were not either properly updated or were plainly incorrect.

Now, it is going to be an uphill task for the election officials to delete lakhs of duplicate and fake entries and furnish the count. There is also the issue of bogus or multiple electoral identity cards issued in the name of the same person.  It is not going to be easy to find them and destroy them.  This raises the prospect of miscarriage of the electoral verdict.

Though the irregularities could not have happened to this scale without the connivance of officials, a proper inquiry is yet to be conducted. So far action had been taken against only one official though many need to be removed from playing any role in the elections. Meanwhile Mr. Chennithala has approached the High Court seeking action.

SIC order
Operative part of the SIC order on RTI request for election data.

Kerala Assembly elections: Congress needs a paradigm shift

It will be an uphill task for Congress in Kerala to win the Assembly elections this year. The party will have to reinvent and meet new challenges.

Congressmen will have to forget its group squabbles and seat sharing and come up with a new array of candidates who could win the elections. It is also time for a generation shift.

The Congress has taken a big risk by alienating Kerala Congress (M) so that it could try to dominate in the UDF strong-hold of Kottayam— a long-standing dream of Congress men from the district such as the Kottayam MLA, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan. They thought that the death of Kerala Congress leader K. M. Mani gave them the opportunity. However, erosion of votes seen in the panchayat elections even in former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s constituency (Puthuppally) showed that the dream is a difficult one to realise, though Mr. Chandy and Mr. Radhakrishnan will be able to hold their fort. In the strongholds of Ernakulam district, the emergence of Twenty Twenty as a political party is throwing up a new challenge.

These would force the Congress to pay special attention to districts which are not their strongholds and cut losses in districts such as Pathanamthitta. In this scheme of things, Thiruvananthapuram district becomes one where the party has to fight some important battles especially against the BJP.

It has been suggested that top Congress leaders like Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala should contest from Thiruvananthapuram to wrest the Nemom seat from the BJP and the Vattiyoorkavu seat from the CPI (M). However, the leaders were not willing to move out of their pocket boroughs.  Obviously, they could fail in Thiruvananthapuram if BJP and CPI (M) come to a tactical understanding behind the scenes. Many are already concluding that the BJP is forcing Chief Minister Pinarai Vijayan for some adjustment, as a quid pro quo against Central agencies going slow on the probes on involvement of the Chief Minister’s Office and some Ministers and Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan in gold smuggling and other scams. Now, the party is trying to persuade V. M. Sudheeran to contest from Vattiyoorkavu while the strategies for other constituencies are not yet clear.

The party has members of Parliament Rajmohan Unnithan and K. Sudhakaran to hold the fort in Kasaragod and Kannur districts respectively. But K. Muraleedharan, MP, has stated that he would campaign only in his constituency (Vadakara), pointing to ongoing infighting in the party.

Though the honesty and suave manners of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is no match for the divisive politics of Narendra Modi at the national level, the presence of the Wayanad MP can cast a spell in Kerala.  But this has to be matched with selection of inspiring young leaders to win strong-holds of the CPI (M). Names such as that of AICC spokesperson Shama Mohamed has come up in this regard. Congress will also have to think of fielding winnable candidates from outside the party also as the stock of the khadi-wielding politicians with no worthwhile job of their own (other than politics) is fast diminishing. But the scramble for seats among party men has always prevented Congress from scouting for talents outside.

Yet, the party is showing some signs of mending. It is drawing up a well-studied manifesto under the leadership of Shashi Tharoor and other qualified persons.  However, barring Mr. Tharoor, the social media presence of Congress and its outreach to the young are still poor compared to BJP and the CPI (M). Though Congress men are active here and there solo, there is no coordinated action to project policies or political views. In fact, many leaders are found wanting or afraid to take on BJP and even the CPI (M).  This is why it is important for the party have a new generation of leaders with no baggage from the past to carry.

Performance of Members of Parliament 2014 – 2019

P. K. Biju meeting voters

Did you know that CPI (M) member P. K. Biju (Alathur) was among the top ten performers of the outgoing Lok Sabha in terms of participation in debates, but the topper beats him by a score more than six times higher?

Congress member K. V. Thomas, who did not get a seat this time, and actor Innocent (CPI-M independent), who is contesting again from Chalakudy, were the poorest performers among members who served the full term from Kerala.

Topper Bhairon Prasad Mishra (BJP) from Uttar Pradesh attended all sittings of the House and participated in 2095 debates.  You may even wonder whether the Sabha had so many debates, considering the poor participation by many of our elected representatives. The average participation was about 67 debates nationally and 142.5 for members from Kerala.

Biju participated in 326 debates followed by RSP’s N. K. Premachandran (300) and Independent Joice George (290).  On the other hand, Thomas and Innocent participated only in 42 debates each. P. K. Kunhalikutty (Muslim League) has the lowest score of nine from Kerala. It may be noted here that he was in the House only for about two years, having been elected in a by-election from Malappuram in April 2017. If we extrapolate his performance for five years, it is still the lowest from Kerala.

The outgoing Lok Sabaha has as many as 32 members who did not participate in any of the debates. They included post graduates and doctorate degree holders. They also included former Chief Ministers Shibu Soren (Jharkhand) and Kamal Nath (Madhya Pradesh) besides actor Shatrughan Sinha.

The oldest member in Lok Sabha, L. K. Advani of BJP, participated in only one debate in  a span of five years. So was the youngest member Pravin Kumar Nishad of Samajwadi Party from Uttar Pradesh who incidentally is a professional graduate.

Supriya Sule of Nationalist Congress Party from Maharastra topped in terms of the questions she had asked the government in the House.  She had asked as many as 1181 questions during the five-year term.  Nishikant Dubey of BJP from Jharkhand presented the highest number of private members’ bills in the House— 48 against average of 2.3 bills nationally.

The following MPs had 100 per cent attendance in the House, besides Bhairon Prasad Mishra.

Kulamani Samal Odisha Jagatsinghpur Biju Janata Dal Professional Graduate 100%
Ramesh Chander Kaushik Haryana Sonipat Bharatiya
Janata Party
Professional Graduate 100%
Bhairon Prasad Mishra Uttar Pradesh Banda Bharatiya
Janata Party
Inter/ Higher Secondary 100%
Gopal Chinayya Shetty Maharashtra Mumbai-North Bharatiya Janata Party Under Matric 100%

Attendance is not marked for Ministers. Niranjan Jyoti from Uttar Pradesh had 100 per cent attendance till she became a Minister in August 2014.

Full set of sortable data at
http://www.keralaassembly.org/lok/sabha/2019/performance_2019.php4

Mullaperiyar- fresh litigation will be ill-advised at this stage

Kerala Government plans to approach the Supreme Court yet again on the Mullaperiyar issue— this time over the alleged failures of the supervisory committee appointed by the Court to properly manage release of water from Dam through the spillways.

This is just an attempt by the politicians to buy time and hoodwink the public. The supervisory committee has representatives of Kerala and Tamil Nadu and Central Water Commission. The question of failure to issue timely warning before release of water through the spillways is a matter that the State government should be able to settle administratively, if necessary seeking intervention of the Centre. It will not be appropriate to agitate the Supreme Court now.

Moreover, it is not Kerala’s case that the Tamil Nadu did not warn it of impending release of water. There were reports that Theni Collector did so a few days ago. The complaint is that the Idukki Collector was not informed six hours before the release. Tamil Nadu apparently wanted to record that the water level touched 142 feet. When water level reached 141.9, it became imperative for Tamil Nadu to release water immediately as the inflow was very heavy. There needs to be an understanding on gradual release of water without waiting for the water level to touch 142 feet.

Kerala should also insist upon its lower riparian rights. The Expert Committee appointed by the Supreme Court had mooted construction of a tunnel to drain water into Periyar River downstream. This is also important from the point of view of safety. All modern dams have Bottom outlet tunnel which will facilitate emptying of the dam in case of an emergency—the Mullaperiyar dam does not have one, being one designed in the 19th century.

Every time Kerala has gone to Court over the Mullaperiyar issue, it has led to closure of its options. It has already lost its case that Tamil Nadu should raise the water level of Mullaperiyar beyond 136 feet only after exhausting storage at Vaigai Dam and that the spillway shutters should be opened gradually. In fact, when Kerala is arguing that the dam is not safe, it should be prepared for sudden release of water. This was what was lacking downstream of Mullaperiyar this Monday.

Kerala has failed to set up monitoring facilities it proposed on earlier occasions downstream of the Dam. Around 50 monitoring installations on the dam and reservoir, under control of Tamil Nadu, are reportedly not functioning. This is an issue that Kerala should be taking up legally or administratively. Even a modern dam without functioning monitoring equipment is unsafe.

Kerala had rushed to nullify a Supreme Court order of 2006 though legislation within weeks of the Court issuing the order. The legislature in its wisdom fixed the water level at 136 feet without building up supporting material. The Kerala Dam Safety Authority, which is a quasi judicial body, on the other had could have commissioned international studies on Mullaperiyar under the law and fixed the water level appropriately which would have been difficult to question before the Supreme Court.

When the Court quashed the law, Kerala suffered a multiple blow. Its arguments had led to the Supreme Court appointing a supervisory committee. As the supervisory committee of the Supreme Court is now managing the water level, it could put blame on Tamil Nadu only if it disregarded directives of the committee. Kerala will not even be able claim damages from Tamil Nadu for any losses caused by release of water or dam failure.

Kerala had ample time to prepare internationally acceptable documents on safety of Mullaperyar Dam from 2006 and even before. But it always rushed to do studies at the last minute. When safety of the people was paramount, one of the first studies it commissioned over a short span of time after 2006 was on submergence of forests and wildlife. (An analysis of errors in that study is available here. The author had to admit before Court that he had done a copycat job of work done by a State agency.)

Though there was an erroneous observation in the 2006 judgment (See Mullaperiyar- behind the veil.) that waters from Mullaperiyar would be contained in Idukki reservoir in case of failure of the former, Kerala failed to complete and produce the Dam Break Analysis before the Supreme Court in the case filed by Tamil Nadu challenging Kerala’s dam safety law.


 

Extract from judgment
Extract from the judgment of Supreme Court in ORIGINAL SUIT NO. 3 OF 2006 between Tamil Nadu and Kerala

Though the State Information Commission has ruled that this and other studies are public documents, the Principal Secretary of Water Resources Department has issued an illegal order against release of documents pertaining to the Mullaperiyar Dam as long as the issue is under litigation. Perhaps this is one reason why it wants another litigation.

As its strategies have failed so far, it is high time that it reconstituted the Mullaperiyar Special Cell with fresh talent and drew up fresh strategies.

For further reading:

Mullaperiyar: Kerala seeks review of Probable Maximum Flood

 

 

 

 

Legislation will formalise harthals

Harthal at ChalaiThe Government is proposing a legislation to bring restriction on organisation of harthals. However, it could very well end up being a piece of legislation granting political parties and other organisations a right to call for harthal. It is proposed that the organisers of harthals should announce it three days in advance.

The government could ban it if it is convinced that there would be the possibility of violence. Forced closure of shops and blocking of movements of people will attract imprisonment of up to six months or a fine of Rs. 10000 or both.

Harthal was a form of direct action devised by Gandhiji to protest against the colonialists and that too against acts like the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh. The Congress and its leaders, at that time, were totally committed to non-violence. Only a non-violent organization has the right to call harthal (none of today’s political parties could be classified as one). It is a non-violent mode of protest.

Nobody joins harthals willingly these days. Harthal, called by even minor political parties, is a ‘success’ because there is a threat of violence behind it. So, provisions in the proposed legislation such as one empowering government to ban harthals, if it is convinced that there would be violence, ignores the fact that harthal is inherently violent today. Such a provision will only be a political tool in the hands of successive governments. (Will a ruling party/front in the State ever be ‘convinced’ that there would be violence if it is a harthal against the policies of a Central government under a different party/front?)

So, action should be mandated against any political leader who makes a call for a harthal since threat of violence is inherent in such a call. If some people locally and spontaneously observe a harthal on their own free will over a murder or something like that, let it be countenanced. That is, harthal as such need not be banned, but making a call for harthal through mass media, public address systems and the like should be banned.

This automatically rules out proposals like announcement of harthals three days in advance. Even if such announcements are made, the hardship of people will only be diminished and not eliminated. Even for a journey to Bangalore these days by bus, one has to book a week in advance. (Train/air reservations are made months in advance). Harthal is not a suitable mode of protest in cities that work 24×7. The loss of lives, property and production caused by harthals is significant and will not be mitigated by a notice.

Forced closure of shops and forced restriction on movement of people are actually violation of fundamental rights. There are already provisions in the IPC and other laws to check such acts. Bringing fresh laws is not answer to failure of the government to enforce existing laws. In fact, there is a need to prune the statute book; but recommendations made by law reforms committee and commission are gathering dust.

The Supreme Court and the High Court, which are empowered to enforce fundamental rights even in the absence of laws, have already banned bandhs. The problem now is that the police are not taking cognizance of bandhs masquerading as harthals.

If at all a new law is to be enacted, it should be to define harthal/bandh and ban calling of harthals by political parties and other organisations with its inherent threat of violence. Fine of Rs. 10000 is insufficient as the damage caused by harthals is much more. Victims should be able to claim compensation separately for death, injury and loss of property. Express provisions should be included for this purpose. Provision should also be there for traders to claim compensation against those forcing closure of shops by violent means.

The Government should not formalise a ‘right to call harthals’ by providing for a notice procedure.

Hat trick by Oommen Chandy

Sabarinath with CM

K. S. Sabarinath (Right) with Oommen Chandy

It was a hat-trick victory for Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and the ruling Front in Aruvikkara Assembly constituency on Tuesday. The United Democratic Front (UDF) had won by-elections earlier at Neyyattinkara and Piravom after Mr. Chandy came to power in 2011.

The result indicates that Mr. Chandy’s mass contact strategy is still working though some might be disappointed by the unchanging face of bureaucracy. It also shows that the corruption charges against the government did not have the impact that the Opposition hoped for. The failure of the candidate put up by UDF dissident P. C. George to garner even one per cent of the votes perhaps underlines this.

The UDF had cleverly fielded a new face in the election instead of a seasoned politician. Now, almost every citizen know that politicians routinely take money from businessmen including bar and quarry owners for doing favours. But UDF candidate K. S. Sabarinadhan could not be grouped with them as he has not been in politics before.

Vote sharesHowever, it is notable that opposition parties, including BJP, and NOTA carried away a vote share of 56.87 per cent while UDF’s vote share dropped by 9.17 percentage points (from 48.78% to 39.61%.). The Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) suffered a loss of 7.1 percentage points (from 39.61% to 32.51%). NOTA polled one per cent of the votes. The vote share of BJP increased by nearly four-fold from 6.61 per cent to 23.96 per cent.

It showed that BJP could extend the advances it made in Thiruvananthapuram at least partially to neighbouring constituencies provided that it has the right candidate and political climate. BJP’s O. Rajagopal had won 33.3 per cent of the votes in the Lok Sabha polls from Thiruvananthapuram constituency in 2014. Now, he has won 23.96 per cent votes from a neighbouring Assembly segment.

This does not mean that BJP can duplicate the performance in the Assembly elections in 2016. It simply lacks candidates of the stature of Mr. Rajagopal to be fielded in other constituencies. It is also notable that Mr. Rajagopal’s popularity is not as strong as in Thriuvananthapuram in Aruvikkara. His appeal may have also diminished compared to the time of Modi wave and loss of popularity of Shashi Tharoor (who defeated him in Thiruvananthapuram).

However, the BJP’s performance is a clear warning to both the UDF and LDF. They will lose votes if people find an alternative, perhaps even NOTA, if they take the voters for granted. People are also not ignoring issues like development. The UDF lost a lead in Aruvikkara panchayat of Aruvikkara constituency over issues of local development. It won because BJP took away votes of LDF also. by-electionRelated Post:
Crucial battle for Oommen Chandy in Kerala

Crucial battle for Oommen Chandy in Kerala

The by-election from Aruvikkara constituency in Kerala is a crucial battle for Ommen Chandy government, beleaguered by corruption charges.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has taken it upon himself to win the election by fielding a novice. He has already addressed or interacted directly with half of the electorate in the constituency.

by-election

Finale of by-election campaign in Aruvikkara constituency in Kerala. Photos: Roy Mathew

A victory in Aruvikkara will enable Mr. Chandy to claim that his government still has people’s support. The ruling Front will be winning the third by-election after coming to power in 2011. (It had earlier won by-elections from Neyyattinkara and Piravom).

A defeat would show that support for government has slipped. This would encourage his detractors and he will face increasing pressure over corruption, questionable associations and misdemeanors of his Ministers and his own office. Though challenge to Mr. Chandy’s Chief- Ministership is not as strong as before, a defeat in the by-election can spell serious trouble for Mr. Chandy.

The campaigning is throwing out characteristics of a neck to neck race. However, the chances of the ruling Front (UDF) or Opposition Front (LDF) making a significant advance at the finish line could not be ruled out. The UDF candidate K. S. Sabarinathan, being a novice, has the advantage of being unblemished. The LDF candidate M. Vijayakumar, on the other hand, has to carry his own baggage. He faces an unusual situation of a counter affidavit having filed against his affidavit given as part of his nomination papers.

electionThis may be first time that a counter gets filed against an affidavit filed by a candidate. This could now become a trend in future elections.
The BJP candidate O. Rajagopal is sure to carry away a notable number of votes from the UDF and LDF kitty. He had been runner up in elections from Thiruvananthapuram.

His party’s vote share in Aruvikkara in the Assembly election of 2011 was only less than seven per cent. Mr. Rajagopal, who is popular around Thiruvananthapuram, and his foray into an adjoining area is sure to increase BJP’s votes.

Related links:
Kerala Assembly election database
By-election results: Neyyattinkara and Piravom

Governor redeems

Finance Minsiter K. M. Mani

Kerala Finance Minister K. M. Mani presenting the Budget for 2015-16 in the Assembly on March 13, 2015 amidst vandalism by Opposition

Kerala Governor P. Sadasivam has at least nominally redeemed the prestige of Kerala legislature by warning legislators about their conduct.

A former Chief Justice of Supreme Court of India, Sadasivam will not have failed to notice the obvious break down of not only Constitutional norms but also gross violation of democratic principles by the Opposition. There is no place for vandalism in legislative bodies in a democracy. However, reaction from opinion leaders was generally muted while the ordinary people on the social media could do nothing more than lampooning the politicians.

The Governor’s remark that the happenings on the floor of the Assembly on Friday (March 13, 2015) may even justify submission of a report by the Governor to the President under Article 356 of the Constitution of India is a rebuke to both the ruling and Opposition fronts. What the Governor hints is the vandalism of the kind in the House amounts to Constitutional break down warranting dissolution of the Assembly.

The Speaker N. Sakthan could not maintain even a semblance of order in the Assembly because of his reluctance of use force. Normal practice in the House is to use the watch and ward to cordon the podium of the Speaker as soon as the Opposition starts disruption of proceedings. On Friday, the Opposition had started their protest even before the House was called into session. Speaker probably hesitated because he was new to the Chair and did not want to start with a direct confrontation with the Opposition and become a direct target of the Opposition in the coming days.

The Opposition leaders had gone to the Governor saying that the presentation of the Budget was not in order, after creating all the disorder. The Governor has indirectly rebuffed them by accepting the Speaker’s stand that the Budget was duly presented. The Speaker could not be seen as conducting the business of the House during the bedlam created by the Opposition who had also practically gheraoed the Speaker and thrown his chair off the podium in gross disregard to the prestige of the House and its privileges. (The procedures adopted in the House for presentation of the Budget could be irregular but could not be challenged in a court of law. The House is the final arbiter of its own procedures).

The Governor, who himself is part of the Assembly as head of the State, has hinted that the further proceedings on the Budget including passing of the demands for grants on account and Appropriation Bill should be done in an orderly fashion. He may not condone total absence of order and decorum.