On Tuesday, bills to enable ‘One Nation One Election’, which were tabled in the Lok Sabha have become the latest flashpoint between the BJP and its allies and the INDIA bloc. While the BJP and its allies have backed the bills, many opposition parties, including Congress, Samajwadi Party, and Shiv Sena (UBT) have opposed it. While a total of 32 parties are supporting the ‘One Nation One Election’ move, 15 others are opposing it. Fence sitters like Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP, BRS, and AIADMK have also backed the legislation that would enable simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha as well as state assemblies.
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said the party would firmly oppose the introduction of the bills. Ramesh said the BJP’s real objective was to bring a “new Constitution”. “We believe it’s unconstitutional. We believe it goes against the basic structure, and it is meant to throttle democracy and accountability in this country,” Ramesh said.
Echoing the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said the bill was against the Constitution. She said, “It is an attack on the Constitution. It is tampering with the election process. The BJP wants to centralise power. We don’t know how cost-effective it will be. We will oppose this bill”.
Despite having differences with the Congress on a host of issues, the Samajwadi Party also said it would oppose the legislation. “In a way, this is another conspiracy to destroy the Constitution,” Akhilesh Yadav tweeted. The Trinamool Congress, another party that has recently had fraught relations with the Congress, said the party would oppose the One Nation One Election bill “tooth and nail”. “The bill will rob the people of their fundamental right to vote regularly, a right that holds governments accountable and prevents unchecked power,” TMP MP Abhishek Banerjee tweeted.
DMK supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin said its MPs would also oppose the bills, saying it was the BJP’s ultimate aim to usher in a presidential form of governance. Stalin argued that the bills, would eliminate the system of periodic state elections, thereby undermining regional sentiments. However, the bills found support from NDA allies like Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP, JD(S) and fence-sitters like YSRCP.
YSRCP MP PV Mithun Reddy said the party did not have any issues with simultaneous polls. “We are already having simultaneous state elections with general elections. We don’t have much issues. We will support the bill,” he said. Accusing Congress of double standards, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the country used to have simultaneous polls during the regime of Jawaharlal Nehru after Independence.
“When India got independence, for two decades India had One Nation One Election. It was only after Congress misused Article 356, that there were different elections… Does Congress mean to say that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s government for so long was illegal?” Rijiju said.
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