In the first phase, voting will be held to elect 12 Municipal Corporations, 41 Municipal committees and 69 Nagar Panchayats. In all, representatives of 2700 wards will be elected on December 11. The total number of urban local bodies in the state is 358, of which 268 are going to the elections.

The most important feature of the ongoing civic elections is that for the first time, 50 per cent seats in all urban bodies have been reserved for women. Till the last elections, this figure was 33 per cent. This means that in every body, women will be in a majority for they are free to contest from general constituencies as well.

Because of the increase in the reservation percentage for women, the political parties found it extremely difficult to choose suitable women candidates. Most of the candidates are wives, sisters, sisters-in-law, daughters and daughters-in-law of male party leaders. Owing to the absence of any meaningful choice, even such candidates have been put up who hardly possess the requisite ability to do justice to their future assignments.

Besides finding suitable women candidates, selection of nominees, in general, was a difficult task for the political parties. Despite claims by the top leadership of various parties that the selection has been done on the basis of broad consensus, a sizeable chunk of workers and leaders in almost all parties have raised the banner of revolt, accusing the leadership of partisanship. Allegations that money played a key role in the final selection are being publicly made by the disgruntled members of the Congress and BJP—the two parties which have high stakes in the elections.

The urban local body elections have assumed a crucial importance because, unlike Panchayat polls, they are contested on party symbols. Therefore, the performance of various political parties in these polls becomes a measure of their popularity graph.

The parties made the final selection of candidates under the pressure of several factors including loyalty to the factional leaders, caste equations and the capability of the wannabe candidates to finance their poll effort. In the BJP, dissensions surfaced at the stage of formation of selection committees. Among those who protested against the partisanship in the constitution of these committees included senior minister Mr. Babulal Gaur. A former chief minister and now the number two in the Shivraj Singh cabinet, Mr. Gaur wanted his daughter-in-law to be fielded as the BJP's Mayoral nominee from Bhopal. He pressed his demand and despite stiff opposition from his intra-party detractors, he could ultimately win the battle.

Ms. Krishna Gaur, who lost her husband a few years ago, is being groomed by Mr. Babulal Gaur as his political successor. She plunged herself into the local politics of Bhopal more than three years back and was successful in carving out a niche for herself. She is a formidable candidate. In contrast, the Congress has fielded a virtually unknown face to take on Ms. Gaur. No political worker had heard her name and no Congress leader had seen her face before Ms. Abha Singh was declared the Congress nominee for the prestigious elections to the post of the Mayor of Bhopal. Given the fact that the Congress nominee is a non-entity, observers feel that Ms. Krishna Gaur's victory is almost a foregone conclusion.

In another prestigious Mayoral contest in Indore too, the selection of the Congress candidate came as a surprise. The party fielded Ms. Pankaj Singhvi under the pressure of Union minister Mr. Kamal Nath. A bulk of Congressmen in the state feel that Mr. Kamal Nath had no business, poking his nose into the affairs of Indore—a place far away from his zone of his influence. Chinndwara, from where Mr. Kamalnath hails, is more than 600 km. away from Indore. Mr. Singhvi's selection resulted in wide-spread discontent among the Indore Congresspersons. Ashwini Joshi—a Congress MLA from Indore who was one of the probables—and his supporters burnt the effigy of all the Congress leaders whom they thought were responsible for Singhvi's selection.

At a few places, denial of ticket even led to suicides and in many cases, disappointed ticket-seekers suffered heart-attacks. The most pathetic case came from Raisen, a district-headquarter town about 45 km from Bhopal. A senior BJP leader Mr. Ravi Maheshwari had sought ticket for his wife to contest for the Presidentship of the Raisen municipal committee. Some time back, Mr. Maheshwari had quit the BJP to join the Congress. Subsequently, he was persuaded to re-join the BJP. It is claimed that he re-joined the BJP on the categorical assurance that either he or his wife would be accommodated in the list of party nominees. But when the final list of BJP candidates came out, neither Mr. Maheshwari and nor his wife figured in it. This came as a rude shock to Maheshwari, who took the extreme step of ending his life

There were other cases of party leaders suffering heart attacks after being denied tickets. Those who suffered cardiac arrests included Mr. Badri Singh, chief of the Damoh district unit of the BJP. He died while under treatment. Rajesh Singh of Rewa also suffered a heart attack after he was denied ticket.

These unfortunate, tragic incidents stress the need for a review of the present method of selecting candidates. At present, the candidates are selected within the four walls of the party offices, dominated by a handful of powerful leaders of the political party concerned. The selection process lacks transparency. Why can't the Indian political parties follow the example of USA and UK, where the party candidates are selected according to well-defined democratic procedures? The present system causes bad-blood, animosity and violent reactions among the wannabe candidates, besides the parties facing revolt from those who are denied tickets. Those who are denied tickets are not convinced that merit or any other rational criterion led to their rejection. The candidates are selected as per the whims and fancies, the likes and dislikes of a clutch of powerful leaders. It is in the interest of democracy that this situation should change. Suicides and heart attacks of disappointed nominees do not augur well for the Indian democracy. (IPA)