NEW DELHI: In a late evening filing Tuesday, Election Commission told Supreme Court the Kerala govt has no locus standi to seek postponement of the special intensive revision (SIR) of the state’s electoral rolls on the ground of a parallel process being underway for local body elections.EC said it has issued categorical instructions to ensure that SIR activities are conducted in a manner that does not overlap with or interfere in any way with local body poll work.It said, “Kerala lacks the requisite locus standi to seek deferment of SIR on the ground of its simultaneous conduct with the local self-govt institution elections, as the authority to determine the schedule and conduct of such local elections exclusively vests with the Kerala State Election Commission (KSEC).”Fixing poll schedules from the grassroots level democratic bodies to that of Parliament is the sole prerogative of SEC and if any was to be aggrieved by simultaneous conduct of SIR and local body elections, it should have been KSEC and not the state govt, EC said.”Kerala SEC and the Kerala chief electoral officer (CEO) are functioning in close coordination to ensure smooth and efficient conduct of both local body elections and SIR without any disruption to either process,” EC said, adding district collectors, who are also the district election officers for both local body polls and SIR, have assured adequate administrative arrangements are in place to facilitate efficient implementation of both activities. It said, “District collectors are authorised to engage only those personnel who are not assigned local body poll duties for SIR-related work. Wherever personnel assigned for election-related work are required by SEC, they may be substituted for SIR duties in accordance with ECI guidelines.”EC said it is clear there exists no operational overlap between first phase of SIR and conduct of local elections.
