SHILLONG: During last year’s by-election to the Nongstoin Assembly seat, the Congress candidate Gabriel Wahlang had to relinquish the post of MDC before contesting the seat.
Another case in point is that a government official normally has to first quit his post in order to contest an election either for the State Assembly or the Parliament.
However, this is not the case with an MLA contesting any Parliamentary seat or vice versa.
Sources on Sunday said that the question has come to the fore with legislator Dikkanchi Shira’s name being cleared by the Congress to contest the Tura Lok Sabha seat.
According to sources, it was after the State government on October 1 last year barred MDCs from holding the post of MLAs and vice versa after passing the dual post Bill citing office of profit that Wahlang had to quit the post of MDC before contesting the Nongstoin seat.
The dual post Bill did not fix any time period for the MDCs or MLAs to quit their respective posts unlike an MLA or an MP.
Compared to an MDC and government servant, legislators contesting the Parliamentary elections or MPs seeking election from any Assembly seat do not need to resign from their respective posts immediately, as they get a buffer time of six months to do so.
A former Election department official said that the provision of six months is derived from filling up of a vacancy in Assembly or Parliament seat within that duration.
The official pointed out that the matter needs to be examined and added the issue should be open for debate for the sake of clarity.
“We need to check whether a legislator contesting Lok Sabha seat will come under any disqualification if he or she does not resign from the current post prior to filing his nomination,” he added.
