New Delhi, Jan 7: Calling the ‘one nation, one election’ concept being pushed by the BJP a “threat to democracy and federalism, the CPI(M) on Thursday the opposition should not be caught unawares when the Modi government makes its move in Parliament on the matter and should unitedly defeat such a proposal.
In the latest editorial of the party mouthpiece People’s Democracy, titled ‘One Nation, One Election: Threat to Democracy and Federalism’, the party has alleged that the government and the BJP are planning “another serious assault on the Constitution and the very basis of parliamentary democracy in India.”
“The BJP has conducted 25 webinars in the last week of December 2020 to propagate the idea of ‘one nation, one election’. This came in the background of Prime Minister Narendra Modi making one of his periodic pronouncements about the need for ‘one nation, one election’. The latest was at the 80th Presiding Officers’ Conference on November 26, which happened to be the Constitution Day,” it said
The edit alleged that the underlying message is that too many elections are not good for democracy, more important is governance. “This is in line with what the CEO of the Niti Aayog, Amitabh Kant, said that there is too much democracy in India with regard to the farmers’ struggle. The message is as clear as daylight — the call for ‘one nation, one election’ is a logical extension of ‘one nation, one leader’ and the leader has declared that this is ‘not a matter of debate but a necessity for India’,” it said.
It alleged that the Constitutional changes that will be required to bring it about will fundamentally change the character of parliamentary democracy and destroy federalism in the country.
Outlining the “dangers” of ‘one nation, one election’, the editorial goes on to say that centralised control of state legislatures and state governments will be established in such a system. It alleged that the BJP has been consistently putting out the idea since it appeared in its election manifesto in 2014. (PTI)
