BSP supremo Mayawati skipped the Prime Minister-convened meeting on 'one nation, one poll' saying that conducting simultaneous national and State elections is an "undemocratic and unconstitutional" idea for a vast country like India and that she would have attended meeting had it been called to address the "national concern" over EVMs.
'One nation, one election' is not an issue before the country.Elections through ballot papers are actually the national issue and our party will continue its struggle for it," she said adding elections in any democracy can never be a problem nor they should be weighed from the point of view of expenditure and extravagance.
She said the 'one nation, one election' is in fact an attempt and a new drama to divert the attention from burning national issues such as poverty, inflation, unemployment and increase in violence, and is simply an illusion.
The BSP chief alleged that the people's faith in the EVMs had dwindled to a worrisome level. "The stubbornness of conducting elections through electronic voting machines instead of ballot paper is the real threat to the democracy and Constitution of the country," she said.
