Simultaneous polls to erode federalism, Law Commission told

New Delhi, July 8: A majority of regional parties that took part in a discussion on simultaneous polls on Sunday told the Law Commission that such an exercise would undermine the regional aspirations and erode the federal set up envisioned in the Constitution. While a few including the Samajwadi Party and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) supported the idea of ‘one-nation-one-election’, some like the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) questioned the sincerity of the Centre towards poll reforms. The Congress and the BJP were conspicuous by their absence on the second day of the discussions too.

Opposing the idea of simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and the state legislatures, the TDP said the proposal was “impracticable” and “against the spirit of the Constitution and federal structure”. AAP’s Ashish Khetan, after meeting the Law Commission, said that for simultaneous polls to happen, the Constitution of India will have to be “mutilated and rewritten completely”. Warning that simultaneous elections goes against the basic tenets of the Constitution, the DMK opposed the idea, saying it was unwarranted and practically not possible.

Terming the Law Commissions consultations on simultaneous polls a “futile exercise”, the JD-S said the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party was just “testing the waters” through it with no real intentions of reforms in the electoral process. “This is a futile exercise. In a federal democracy you cannot think of simultaneous elections. If you want poll reforms, first and foremost, there must be a ceiling on expenditure by political parties during elections. But no one’s talking about it,” JD-S spokesman Danish Ali said after the meeting. A number of parties including the Trinamool Congress, CPI, AIADMK, Goa Forward Party (GFP) and IUML also opposed the idea in their discussion with the law panel on Saturday. The CPI-M wrote to the Law Commission on Friday opposing the idea. (IANS)