BJP backs Modi's call for simultaneous elections

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state legislatures won endorsement from the BJP national executive late on Friday.

Terming the prime minister’s call a “another path-breaking initiative” in the electoral reforms, the conclave adopted a political resolution that described the move together with several other important reforms would pave the way for cleaner and healthier electoral practices in the country.

It called for a wider debate on the PM’s call among the political parties, intelligentsia and the voters at large, indicating that Modi would pursue the idea more vigorously soon.

With the party’s backing, Modi is expected to call a meeting of political parties for working at a consensus on the subject before the budget session of Parliament.

The BJP’s two-day executive also put on record Modi’s initiatives in various sectors as “not merely for reform” or “largely about tinkering the existing system” but intended to bring about a fundamental course correction and transformation at the grass roots.

“A new culture of honesty, discipline, commitment and patriotism is the end goal of our government,” it said, adding that “the prime minister’s relentless efforts in leading from the front to usher in a new work culture and ethics where honesty is respected and rewarded and dishonest are shown the path of reform”.

The conclave’s political resolution claimed the surgical strikes “have had the required effect on our neighbour. This can be gauged from the fact that there is near normal silence on the border and also the initiative taken by Pakistan to call for DGMO level talks.