NOTA a candidate, direct mayoral election: Haryana announces civic body polls with many firsts
Chandigarh, Nov 22: In a significant move, the Haryana Election Commission has decided to treat 'none-of-the-above' or NOTA option as a fictional candidate in upcoming municipal polls, making it must for winning candidates to secure more votes than those cast for NOTA.
Elections to the municipal corporations of Karnal, Panipat, Yamunanagar, Rohtak and Hisar and municipal committees of Jakhal Mandi in Fatehabad and Pundri in Kaithal will be held on December 16, Haryana Election Commissioner Dalip Singh said Thursday.
In another first, the mayors of the five municipal corporations too will be elected directly for which the electors would cast votes, not only to elect ward councillors but also the mayor, through unique "multi-post electronic voting machines", he said.
NOTA will be treated as a fictional electoral candidate. If in the election, all the contesting candidates individually receive less votes than those cast for the fictional candidate, NOTA, none of the candidates will be declared elected. The polls will be cancelled and held afresh," he explained.
Singh said while declaring the results, NOTA will be treated as a fictional electoral candidate for the first time in the electoral history of the country.
He said the candidates securing lesser votes than NOTA would not be eligible to file nominations for fresh polls to be held later.
If a contesting candidate and the NOTA both receive equal valid votes, the candidate, and not the fictional candidate, shall be declared elected, he said.
But, in the case of re-election, if NOTA again gets the highest number of votes, the candidate with the second highest votes will be declared elected, he added.
The voting for the five municipal corporations will be held from 7.30 am to 4.30 pm, he said. The results will be declared on December 19.
As many as 1,092 polling booths will be set up in 136 wards of the five municipal corporations.
All main political parties in the state have said they would fight polls on their respective party symbols.
The nominations for the corporations and committees going to polls can be filed from December 1 to 6, except December 2 when it is a holiday.
The scrutiny of nomination papers will be undertaken on December 7, while the last date of withdrawal of candidature has been fixed to be December 8, Singh said.
He said out of ten municipal corporations in the state, polls have already been held in Gurugram and Faridabad.
As far as Sonipat MC goes, the delimitation process is yet to be completed. Once it is done, polls will be held there too," he said.
About Panchkula and Ambala municipal corporations, he said, though the delimitation has already been completed there, it has been challenged in the Punjab and Haryana High Court and is pending there.
Singh pointed out that with the announcement of the poll schedule, the Model Code of Conduct has come into effect within the municipal limits of all the civic bodies going to polls.
About direct elections of mayors, he said, it will be ensured through "multi-post EVMs" which would enable voters to vote separately for the mayor and the councillors.
He said elaborate security arrangements were being made for smooth conduct of elections in free, fair and transparent manner.
The Haryana police will take care of the law and order and security arrangements, he said, adding the sensitive and hypersensitive booths are being identified.
Singh said the state poll panel would also appoint independent observers from among senior IAS, IPS and revenue officers for strict enforcement of the model code and to keep a check on the use of money and liquor in the polls, besides monitoring the expenditure by candidates and parties.
"The observers would report directly to me," he said.
The state poll panel has fixed an expenditure ceiling of Rs 20 lakh for mayoral candidates, Rs 5 lakh for councillors and Rs 2 lakh for municipal committee members.
All candidates are required to maintain an account of their poll expenditures and submit it to the deputy commissioner concerned within 30 days after declaration of the results, failing which a candidate would be liable to be disqualified for contesting polls for five years, he said.
He said 531 such candidates who had contested civic polls in 2013 were disqualified for failing to give their expenditure details.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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