the goan I network
PANAJI
The proposal for simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and State assemblies will kill federalism, Town and Country Planning Minister, Vijai Sardesai, said while voicing opposition to the Narendra Modi-backed idea in his deliberations with the National Law Commission headed by Justice B S Chauhan on Saturday.
Sardesai told the Law Commission in the discussions held in Delhi on Saturday that the Goa Forward Party is of the view that simultaneous elections will be “totally against” the spirit of federalism, which is the Constitution’s fundamental feature.
Also simultaneous elections raise the danger of obfuscating State-centric issues, Sardesai said. National and local issues are “drastically dissimilar” and simultaneous voting could blur the electorate’s judgement.
Another reason cited by Sardesai for the idea of simultaneous polls not being feasible is the Constitutional and Political impasses that could follow should governments at the Centre or States collapse.
“If a government at the Centre loses its majority in the Lok Sabha and a new government is not possible, would elections to all States be called again or would the President govern the country for the remainder term?,” was Sardesai’s poser to the Law Commission.
Similarly, would all elections be held again if the government in one State is voted out or would it be put under governor’s rule for the rest of the term, Sardesai asked.
Second, in the local political context of Goa, there’s a strong possibility that Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar-led BJP may do an encore - force a mid-term poll timed with next Lok Sabha elections due in 2019. Parrikar has once before abruptly recommended dissolution of the Assembly and forced a mid-term poll before time, in 2002.
Sardesai’s and GFP’s opposition to the idea of ‘One Nation, One Election’ strongly mooted by Modi is significant on two counts. First, his party is part of Modi’s multi-party National Democratic Alliance (NDA), though a small one, it could smear the Prime Minister’s bid to take the idea forward.
Sardesai and his GFP which has a strength of three MLAs is a crucial component of the coalition government led by an ailing Parrikar. The political math of the current Goa legislature is a mirror image of the position in 2002, when Parrikar had abruptly recommended dissolution and ensured a mid-term poll.
