Election Commission Seeks Law To Bar Politicians From Contesting Polls From More Than One Seat

In every election, there are some candidates who are confident enough to contest from two constituencies at the same time. Some of them win both seats as well, but they have to leave it as legally they can represent only one constituency at a time. Now, the election commission has suggested that a candidate should not be allowed to contest more than one constituency as vacating one later imposes an unnecessary burden on public funds.

The EC has suggested that the law shouldbe amended to prevent candidates from contesting on multiple seats, a stratagem commonly used by political leaders for reasons that vary from seeking insurance against any shock defeat to signalling their attention to more than one region in an electoral contest.

The list of leaders who contested from more than one seat is long and includes Indira Gandhi, Biju Patnaik and N T Rama Rao and present-day leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad.