Delhi high court rejects PIL opposing post-poll alliances

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday dismissed a PIL opposing the practice of forging post-poll alliances by political parties to gain power on the ground that electors were being kept in the dark about it at the time of casting their votes. “The petition is dismissed,” a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said. [caption id=“attachment_1714689” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP[/caption] The court had reserved its verdict on the issue on September 10. The PIL had been filed by advocate Mithilesh Kumar Pandey, who had challenged the “validity of post-poll alliances among political parties” on the ground that the same was a “breach of the promises made by them during the election campaigns”. Earlier, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain had said there were several national and regional parties and often such alliances have to be entered into to ensure a government is formed as it would not be feasible to conduct elections till one party has an absolute majority. “We can’t have elections at the drop of a hat,” the ASG had said. He had also said, “Promises in poll manifestos can only be followed to the extent it is possible”, adding that in future, “we may be able to have electoral reforms of this nature when our democracy is more mature”. Pandey, however, was of the view that promises made in the manifesto have to be enforced as otherwise it would amount to breach of trust. His PIL had sought a direction “declaring as unconstitutional the practice of post-poll alliances among parties which contested elections against each other”. “Issue directions preventing political parties from violating their own manifestos when such parties enter into post-poll electoral alliances in order to form a government,” the petition had stated. It had also stated that the competent authority be directed to “take steps to make manifesto a legally-binding document”. PTI