MARGAO
As the debate rages over the “secret ballot” versus “show of hands” mode of election for municipal chairpersons and vice-chairpersons, one question that has come to the fore is whether the legislators in the Bhausaheb Bandodkar era had left ambiguity in the Goa Municipalities Act, 1968 over the mode of the poll of civic chairpersons, warranting intervention by the current BJP government headed by Pramod Sawant 54 years later via the Ordinance route?
Or, did the Goa Legislative Assembly in 1968 adopt due care and diligence when the Act was enacted and brought into force through the rules that followed that election for municipal chairpersons ought to be only via secret ballot and not by any other mode by laying an elaborate election procedure?
Congress-turned-BJP MLA Digambar Kamat has made repeated reference to the provisions of the Goa Municipalities Act to justify the Ordinance on grounds that it does not make express provision for a secret ballot but only speaks of election by ballot.
A glance at Rule 7 prescribing the procedure for election may only say the elected councillors shall proceed to elect the chairperson by ballot when there is more than one candidate duly nominated for the post.
Rule 3, 4 and 5, however, do not just speak of ballot papers, but even provides how the councillors should vote and how to fold the ballot paper, all to “conceal” his/her vote before inserting the ballot paper into the box.
In fact, the procedure cast responsibility on the Presiding Officer to arrange the names of the contesting candidates on the ballot paper in alphabetical order determined with reference to the surnames of the candidates having surnames, and the names proper of other candidates, indicating that the Legislators laid down a clear procedure how to go about the election by ballot.
Sub-Section 5 of Rule 7 speaks of secrecy as it prescribes the procedure of how each of the councillors shall record his vote by making a cross against the names of the candidate for whom he wishes to vote. To maintain secrecy, rules prescribe that the councillor fold the ballot paper to “conceal” his vote and insert the folded ballot into the box with a slit kept for the purpose at the place of the meeting.
Legal sources in the know say that the Act and Rules do provide for a ballot, a ballot box and how to go about casting the votes on the ballots, with a provision on how the councillors should go about concealing their vote to achieve secrecy in voting.
“The word secret ballot may not be explicit in the Act and Rules, but if one reads the Act in toto, it speaks of ballots, papers, a cross to cast to vote, and provision to fold the ballot paper to conceal the vote before it is inserted into a ballot box. All the ingredient of what is commonly used as a secret ballot is found in the Act. Just because the word secret ballot is not explicitly used, the government cannot circumvent voting by secret ballot with a show of hands via an Ordinance,” sources asserted.
