[Marxistindia] No To `One Nation, One Election'

[news from the cpi(m)]

March 15, 2024

 

Press Statement

 

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the
following statement:

 

No To `One Nation, One Election’

 

The recommendation of the High Level Committee to hold simultaneous
elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies and the steps proposed to
achieve this are retrograde and will usher in a centralized authoritarian
political system in the country.  

 

There are 18 amendments to the Constitution and other statutes proposed in
the report. These will amount to truncating the parliamentary democratic
system and the right of the people to elect a government for a five year
term.  It will also enhance the powers of the Central government vis-à-vis
the states.  For instance, it is proposed to shorten the tenures of state
assemblies, whose elections are held after the 18th Lok Sabha elections, so
that these state assembly elections can be held along with the 19th Lok
Sabha polls. This would mean, in effect, that the state assemblies of West
Bengal, Assam, Tamilnadu and Kerala, following elections in 2026, will see
their tenure shortened by more than half the full term.

 

The committee also proposes to hold all panchayat and local body elections
within a hundred days of the simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and
state assemblies.  At present, the schedule of local body elections are
decided and conducted by the state governments.  The uniform electoral rolls
for all three levels and simultaneous elections of the local bodies of all
the states will mark a centralization which goes against the very principle
of the decentralized system of panchayats and local bodies.  

 

The CPI(M), once again, reiterates its strong opposition to the concept of
`One Nation, One Election’ and appeals to all democratic organisations and
citizens to unitedly oppose this undemocratic proposal.

 

 

 

(Muralidharan)

For CPI(M) Central Committee office

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://cpim.org/pipermail/marxistindia_cpim.org/attachments/20240315/5d8feec2/attachment.html>