Centre Constitutes 8- Member High Level Committee to Examine ‘One Nation, One Election Under Ex-President Ram Nath Kovind
(Judicial Quest News Network)
The Ruling BJP in a quest to its party’s manifesto promise of working towards Simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in the country, on Friday constituted a High Level Committee that would submit its report to Parliament.
The government’s aim is to bring back previous electoral arrangement of holding simultaneous polls of the Lok Sabh and Assemblies that existed till late 1960s.
BJP in its 2014 election manifesto had promised to “seek through consultation with other parties to evolve method of holding Assembly and Lok Sabha polls simultaneously.
The Committee is constituted by the Law ministry under the chairmanship of former President Ram Nath Kovind to examine the issue.
elections to the House of the People and Legislative Assemblies of States were mostly held simultaneously from 1951-52 to 1967 after which this cycle got broken and now, elections are held almost every year and within a year too at different times, which result in massive expenditure by the Government and other stakeholders, diversion of security forces and other electoral officers engaged in such elections from their primary duties for significantly prolonged periods, disruption in developmental work on account of prolonged application of Model Code of Conduct, etc.
Law Commission of India in its 170th Report on Reforms of the Electoral Laws observed that: “This cycle of elections every year, and in the out of season, should be put an end to. We must go back to the situation where the elections to Lok Sabha and all the Legislative Assemblies are held at once. It is true that we cannot conceive or provide for all the situations and eventualities that may arise whether on account of the use of Article 356 (which of course has come down substantially af ter the decision of Supreme Court in S.R. Bommai vs Union of India) or for other reasons, yet the holding of a separate election to a Legislative Assembly should be an exception and not the rule. The rule ought to be ‘one election once in five years for Lok Sabha and all the Legislative Assemblies.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Leader of opposition Adhir ranjan Chowdhury, Former Leader of Opposition of Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, Senior Advocate Harish Salve, Former Secretary Geeral of Lok Sabha DDr. Subhash C Kashyap, and former Chief Vigilance Commissioner Sanjay Kothari are the members of the Committee.
