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Leaders of the Trinamool Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Samajwadi Party on Tuesday told the One Nation One Election committee chaired by former President Ram Nath Kovind that their parties opposed the idea of simultaneous elections, saying it would be against the Constitution to cut short or extend the term of legislatures and would lead to a presidential-form of government in the future.
In separate meetings, Kovind, along with committee members NK Singh and Ghulam Nabi Azad, met TMC MPs Kalyan Banerjee and Sudip Bandyopadhyay, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Polit Bureau member Nilotpal Basu and Central Secretariat member Muralidharan, and Samajwadi Party leaders K.K. Srivastava and Harish Chandra Yadav.
“One Nation One Election runs contrary to the spirit of our Constitution. It is anti-democratic and anti-federalism because what is proposed is to either shorten the term of the state legislatures or to lengthen it. Either of them is anti-democratic. It’s not based on people’s mandate,” he said.
Yechury added that he told the panel that there were at least four articles of the Constitution that would need to be amended to implement simultaneous elections. He said he asked the committee if a fifth Article, Article 356, which enables the President to suspend a state government and impose President’s rule, would also be amended.
“We asked the committee are they willing to recommend that 356 be scrapped. Naturally, they can’t answer. If you have the right for the central government to dismiss an elected-state government, what is the simultaneous elections you are talking about,” he asked.
On behalf of the TMC, the two Lok Sabha MPs handed over party chief Mamata Banerjee’s letter sent to the committee last month. They reiterated their party’s objections to the idea. The West Bengal Chief Minister had said One Nation One Election would be against the basic structure of the Constitution.
“There is a hidden agenda to form a dictatorial, presidential form of government in the future. The Constitution says people will choose their Union and state governments for five years. These two Articles are the basic structure of the Constitution. These powers of the Constitution and the power of the people cannot be curtailed,” Kalyan Banerjee said after the meeting.
The SP leaders presented SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s letter sent to the committee on January 11, which said regional or local issues would be sidelined in favour of national ones. Yadav’s letter said the party was against holding Lok Sabha and state assembly elections together and that doing so would weaken democracy. “We conveyed to the committee that the Samajwadi Party is against simultaneous elections. After Independence when elections were held simultaneously, there were hardly any regional parties. Today, there are many regional parties that are in power in the states or are the principal Opposition,” said Srivastava.
The committee had written to national and state parties on October 18, 2023, giving them three months to respond with their views. Over the past three weeks, Kovind and the committee have been meeting various stakeholders, including parties, former Chief Election Commissioners, ex-Chief Justices and industry bodies as a part of the consultative process. Monday’s meetings with TMC, CPI(M) and SP were the panel’s first time meeting Opposition parties. According to sources, the meetings with political parties are likely to continue through the week.
The committee also met a delegation of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) on Tuesday, a Law Ministry statement said.
“FICCI in their presentation, supported the concept of One Nation One Election, as multiple elections at various levels adversely impacts the ease of doing business and leads to a slowing down in decision making. FICCI further suggested that savings of expenditure from holding simultaneous elections in the country can be utilised for government spending to further promote economic growth and livelihood generation,” the statement said.
The committee was set up by the government to suggest ways to hold simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha, state assemblies and local bodies, including recommending Constitutional amendments and whether those would need to be ratified by states or not.
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