NEW DELHI, March 4 -- Although the political drama enacted in the Chandigarh Mayoral election on 30 January and the consequent Supreme Court verdict concerns a municipal corporation, their ramifications are far-reaching. Political parties and other stakeholders can learn a few lessons from this sordid episode.

The media widely reported that the returning officer Anil Masih deliberately invalidated and discarded eight votes cast in favour of AAP-Congress combined candidate Kuldeep Kumar and declared Manoj Sonkar of the BJP, who secured 16 votes. If 8 votes were not tampered with and invalidated, Kuldeep Kumar would have got 20 votes out of a total of 36 and won the election. The video of Anil Masih defacing 8 votes and invalidating them w...