Simultaneous polls: BJP CMs given agenda note

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi keeps pushing his idea of holding simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies for a wider debate, the BJP chief ministers are to discuss the proposal at a conclave on February 28.

The exercise is to take place  even  as  top BJP leaders, including party chief Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, have said the next Lok Sabha polls, to be held in 2019, would be held on schedule.

Shah, in particular, has held that the proposal would only be pursued after the next parliamentary elections.

The BJP has now provided its chief ministers with a 10-point action plan.

A three-page concept note sent to  the chief ministers has mooted the idea that the party should strive to create a consensus on the issue by engaging the local Opposition leaders and regional parties.

The note has even suggested that their Assemblies have a debate on the subject.

As part of the 'one-nation-one-election' plan, the party has suggested setting up a committee of senior bureaucrats and a minister to promote the idea.

The BJP  chief ministers have been told to name a senior minister who can be deputed to take the issue forward politically.

However, the Opposition parties have been lukewarm to the idea.

Reversing his earlier view, former President Pranab Mukherjee has said that holding  elections to the Lok Sabha and the Assembly simultaneously was "a very difficult thing to do".

On Friday, delivering the D T Lakdawala memorial lecture, he said clubbing of the elections "artificially" would deny the states their right to a "representative government". His remarks were in stark contrast to what he had said while in office as President.

"People of the state will be denied  of having their representative government if you artificially try to hold elections simultaneously,"  he said.

According to him, there cannot be a gap of more than 180 days between two sessions of the Lok Sabha but in state Assemblies, there was no such constitutional provision, but sessions would have to be held "in a year for two-three times".

"So simultaneous election is very difficult to implement. Even the amendment of the Constitution will not give you guarantee that a state Assembly elected will serve for full five years and if that does not happen what are you going to do? …29 states are there," he said.  

After Modi flagged the issue, President Ram Nath Kovind mooted the idea in his address at the beginning of the Budget Session of Parliament.

Modi has put forth the view that multiple elections, along with the imposition of the Model Code of Conduct, are an impediment in governance. A simultaneous poll to the Lok Sabha and the state Assemblies could save around Rs 4,000 crores.