A day after the Centre named an eight-member high-level committee headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind to “examine and make recommendations for holding simultaneous elections” to Lok Sabha, state Assemblies, municipalities and panchayats, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge Sunday said the idea of ‘one nation, one election’ is a “subterfuge” for dismantling the federal structure of India. Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, too, said the idea of simultaneous elections was an attack on the states. “INDIA, that is Bharat, is a Union of States. The idea of ‘one nation, one election’ is an attack on the Union and all its states,” he said. Alleging that the Narendra Modi government wants to slowly turn democratic India into a dictatorship, Kharge questioned the rationale behind setting up of the committee without consulting the political parties at the national level and at the state level and without elected state governments on board. “The Modi government wants to slowly turn democratic India into a dictatorship. This gimmick of forming a committee on 'one nation, one election' is a subterfuge for dismantling the federal structure of India,” he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. Modi Govt wants Democratic India to slowly turn it into a Dictatorship. This gimmick of forming a committee on 'One Nation, One Election' is a subterfuge for dismantling the Federal Structure of India. There will be at least five Amendments required in the Constitution of… — Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) September 3, 2023 He said the Government will have to make at least five amendments to the Constitution and make massive changes in the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Amendments to the Constitution, he said, will be required to truncate the terms of the elected Lok Sabha and the Legislative Assemblies, as also at the level of local bodies, so that they can be synchronised. “Without undermining the wisdom of any individual, is the proposed committee best suited to deliberate and decide on perhaps the most drastic disruption in the Indian electoral process? Should this huge exercise unilaterally be undertaken without consulting the political parties at the national level and at the state level? Should this humongous operation happen without bringing states and their elected governments on board?” he asked. “This idea has been extensively examined and rejected by three committees in the past. It remains to be seen whether the fourth one has been constituted with a pre-decided outcome in mind. It baffles us that a representative of the prestigious Election Commission of India has been excluded from the committee,” he said. On Saturday, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury — who was the lone opposition voice in the committee — declined to be a member of the panel saying he cannot be part of the committee, the “terms of reference” of which “have been prepared in a manner to guarantee its conclusions”. He called the exercise an “eyewash”. Kharge also questioned the rationale behind synchronised elections. “The fact that the cost incurred by Election Commission in conducting all elections between 2014-19 (including Lok Sabha 2019) is around Rs 5,500 crore, which is only a fraction of government’s budget expenditure, makes the cost-saving logic like penny wise, pound foolish. Similarly, If the Model Code of Conduct is the problem, it can be changed either by shortening the length of the moratorium or by relaxing the kinds of developmental activities permitted during the election season. All political parties can reach a wider consensus in this regard,” he said. The BJP, he alleged, has a habit of overthrowing elected governments by disregarding the mandate of the people. Which have added considerably to the total number of 436 by-elections since 2014 for parliamentary and Assembly constituencies alone. “This inherent greed for power in the BJP has already vitiated our politics and has rendered the anti-defection law toothless,” he said. “Drastic actions like 'One Nation, One Election' would sabotage our democracy, Constitution and evolved-time-tested procedures. What can be accomplished by simple electoral reforms would prove to be a disaster, like other disruptive ideas of PM Modi. Till 1967, we neither had so many states nor did we have 30.45 lakh elected representatives in our panchayats… For 2024, people of India only have ‘one nation, one solution’ — to get rid of BJP misrule,” he said.
