July 7, 2018
ONE NATION, ONE VOTE UNCONSTITUTIONAL, IMPRACTICAL
The Trinamool Congress is against the concept of “one nation, one election”, as proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, since it is impractical and unconstitutional.
Elaborating the reasoning, Party MP and legal counselor Kalyan Banerjee today said that holding simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls was against the basic structure of the Constitution.
Speaking after a Law Commission meeting in Delhi on the subject, he said “the party strongly opposes the concept floated by the BJP government as it is highly impractical and against the provisions of the Constitution.”
Explaining, he said, “Let us assume that the Centre and all states hold elections simultaneously in 2019. If a coalition government is formed at the Centre and that loses majority, then will elections be re-conducted for all states along with the Centre? It is impractical, not possible and contrary to the Constitution. Democracy and government should be given priority. The financial issue is secondary, first priority is the Constitution and democracy. Constitution has to be upheld.”
Those who wrote the Constitution, including Ambedkar, were pundits, he added. “We know nothing compared to them. They never spoke or suggested anything about the ‘one nation, one election’. They gave us a federal structure. The Central government is not superior compared to the states.”
He said it wasn’t obligatory for the states to give in to whatever the Prime Minister demanded.
“The PM does not fulfil his promises. During his campaign before coming to power in 2014, he had said he would give Rs 15 lakh to all after recovering black money from abroad. All that is false, baseless talk, and so is this proposal.”
