New Delhi: A large section of opposition leaders have decided to give Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s all-party meeting to discuss his proposal for simultaneous national and state elections on Wednesday a miss.
Among those who kept away from the meeting are West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav and Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam’s (DMK) M.K. Stalin. The Congress and NCP also kept off.
Although the Union government invited party chiefs for the meeting, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief and Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu and Telangana chief minister and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao have delegated their representatives for the meeting. Raghav Chaddha of AAP, TDP MP from Guntur Jayadev Galla, K.T. Rama Rao, TRS’s working president, will represent them at the meeting.
While most NDA allies, including the Shiromani Akali Dal, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam will attend the meeting, only the Left parties and the National Conference and PDP among the opposition ranks have confirmed their attendance.
Before the meeting, the Congress gave ample indication that it was going to give it the skip, given that most opposition parties have decided to do so.
Last week, the Union parliamentary affairs minister Prahlad Joshi, on behalf of the prime minister, had invited chiefs of all opposition parties to discuss key issues: “One Country, One Election”, development of aspirational districts, programme and celebrations for Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary, building of a “New India” in the 75th year of Indian independence, and ways to improve parliament’s productivity.
Ever since, the controversial issue of “One Country, One Election” has become a topic of discussion once again. The issue was raised by the Modi government last year but was conspicuously pushed to the backburner after the BJP lost the assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Almost a month into the National Democratic Alliance’s second term, it appears that Modi is likely to take up the idea with added aggression.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks set to give another push to the idea of simultaneous polls. Photo: Reuters/Altaf Hussain
What are opposition leaders saying?
Telangana chief minister Rao had a working relationship with the Centre during Modi’s first term. However, with the BJP making significant inroads in his state – winning four of the total 17 seats – he appears to have adopted a stance towards the Centre similar to leaders in Andhra Pradesh.
“What is there to discuss? We will only maintain constitutional relations with Centre. I still back my Federal Front. No use talking to Centre. We didn’t even get one rupee for the state. I have already stated that Modi runs a fascist govt. It is a fact on record,” he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
He had earlier skipped a NITI Aayog governing council meeting chaired by the Prime Minister, expressing his disappointment with the Centre, which he thinks has neglected the concerns of his state.
Mamata Banerjee, who has had a bitter relationship with the Centre over the last two years, too opposed the issues mentioned by the parliamentary affairs minister.
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In a letter to Joshi, she said that a single meeting was not enough to discuss the possibility of “One Nation, One Election”. “The matter requires consultations with constitutional experts, elections experts and above all the party members,” she said, demanding that the government should issue a white paper on the issue.
She also turned down the proposal of emphasis on “aspirational districts”. She said that her party and government were against such a proposal as “it would not conform to the overall objectives of achieving balanced and uniform development of all districts in the state.” Banerjee, too, had skipped the NITI Aayog meeting.
BSP chief Mayawati said that she would have attended the meeting if the prime minister was ready to discuss the issue of suspected malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
She said the idea of simultaneous parliamentary and assembly polls is a “ploy” to divert attention from “burning national issues like poverty, inflation, unemployment and increase in violence”.
“The stubbornness of conducting elections through electronic voting machines instead of ballot paper is the real threat to democracy and the Constitution of the country. In these circumstances, if the meeting was convened to deliberate upon this serious issue, then I would have definitely attended it,” Mayawati tweeted.
किसी भी लोकतांत्रिक देश में चुनाव कभी कोई समस्या नहीं हो सकती है और न ही चुनाव को कभी धन के व्यय-अपव्यय से तौलना उचित है। देश में ’एक देश, एक चुनाव’ की बात वास्तव में गरीबी, महंगाई, बेरोजबारी, बढ़ती हिंसा जैसी ज्वलन्त राष्ट्रीय समस्याओं से ध्यान बांटने का प्रयास व छलावा मात्र है।
— Mayawati (@Mayawati) June 19, 2019
Left parties to oppose simultaneous polls
The Left parties have decided to attend the meeting and oppose the idea of “One Nation, One Election”.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s general secretary Sitaram Yechury in a detailed press statement opposed the idea and suggested ways in which parliamentary productivity could be improved.
He said that his party’s opposition to simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly polls is “based on the fact it is fundamentally anti-federal, anti-democratic and strikes at the root of the parliamentary democratic system, as ordained in the Constitution.”
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He said assembly and Lok Sabha elections were indeed held simultaneous after India adopted the Constitution, but the process derailed because of the “arbitrary use of Article 356” by the Central government, a casualty of which was the “dismissal of the Communist government in Kerala in 1959”.
As of now, he believed that forcing simultaneous polls in India “would require tampering with the Constitutional scheme of accountability of the government to the legislature” and this would require amending articles 75 (3), 164 (1), 83 (2), and 172 (1) of the Constitution – all dealing with collective responsibility of the council of ministers to the people of India.
Sitaram Yechury. Credit: Special arrangement
He added that simultaneous elections would require an “unconstitutional” prolonging in the tenure of the Lok Sabha. He dismissed multiple suggestions made by the NITI Aayog on how simultaneous elections could be conducted, saying each of those subverted the principles of a federal democracy and could defeat the purpose of simultaneous polls.
He said:
“We are, therefore, totally opposed to any artificial attempt to bring about simultaneous elections which can only be done by trampling upon the existing Constitutional scheme of parliamentary democracy.”
On increasing the productivity of parliament, the CPI(M) general secretary took a dig at the Modi government’s poor record of holding enough parliamentary proceedings.
“The basic element to improve Parliament’s productivity is to ensure that it meets more often,” he said while proposing that it “must meet not less than a hundred days in a calendar year”.
He suggested that the schedule for parliament sessions must be announced before the beginning of the new year. It may be recalled that the Union government, over the past five years, has postponed sessions multiple times without giving any reason. Critics have said that this was to allow cabinet ministers to devote their time for election campaigning.
Having a schedule in place, Yechury said, “will ensure greater presence and participation of the Members in parliamentary proceedings. This will also ensure that the foreign tours of the Prime Minister and other Ministers, or, for that matter, visits by foreign dignitaries do not disturb the parliamentary proceedings…”
He further said that the government must ensure that parliament functions strictly according to the rules.
“The practice of arbitrarily defining which Bill is a “Money Bill” currently resides with the Speaker of the Lok Sabha under Article 110(3) of the Constitution. Articles 110(1) and 110(2) elaborately define subjects that qualify to be treated as a “Money Bill” or not. Ignoring 110(1) and 110(2) but invoking 110(3) arbitrarily must be stopped, if necessary, through a Constitutional amendment.”
It may be recalled that important legislations like the Aadhar were passed as Money Bills during Modi’s last tenure.
Yechury also pointed out that parliamentary committees, which have weakened under Modi’s regime, needs to be strengthened and legislations should only be passed after hearing viewpoints of all stakeholders.