Pursuing the objective of recommending simultaneous elections in the country, the Parliamentary panel headed by BJP MP Bhupender Yadav held its meeting here on Monday to further narrow down the discussions and firm up views to enable it to submit its report by the Monsoon session of Parliament.
The panel, which has 10 Rajya Sabha members and 20 lok Sabha members, deliberated the important issue which has also been flagged by the Prime Minister and favoured by the Election Commission.
The one-time poll in the country will reduce the poll expenditure, currently pegged at Rs 4,500 crore , as also save the country from continuous disruption of administrative and development work with frequent imposition of moral Code of conduct.
“The panel members sought EC to provide more inputs to streamline the issue.. the panel would hold regular meetings now..”, said a panel member. “Making it (simultaneous polls) possible may entail major changes in legal provisions”, said the member of parliamentary standing committee on Personnel, public grievances , law and justice that had , so far , held only three-to-four meetings on the issue. The committee with Yadav as Chairman was constituted in September, last year.
Members felt that exercise of simultaneous polls would require synchronization of lok Sabha and state assemblies polls and “ it is not happening soon but now an exercise has begun”, they said.
The previous committee headed by Congress MP (RS) Anand Sharma had not addressed the issue of simultaneously polls.
It is felt that to begin with the polls could also be held in two phases first in the East and West and secondly in North and South India.
Opposition parties are not in favour of the one-time polls as they feel that lok Sabha elections could dominate assembly polls and thus may adversely impact lesser parties.
Dr K Keshava Rao (TRS), D Raja (CPI), Swapan Dasgupta (nominated), , Vivek K Tankha (Congress), Prabhat Jha (BJP), Tiruchi Silva (DMK), Majeed Memon (NCP) are the panel members from Rajya Sabha and Meenakashi lekhi (BJP), Tariq Anwar (NCP), Pralhad Joshi (BJP), Bhagwant Mann (Aam Admi Party), Kalyan Berjee (AITC), B V Nayak (Congress), Rajiv Pratap Rudy (BJP), Vincent Pala (Congress), Udhyankumar (AIDMK) and Dr Vara Prasadarao Velagapalli (AIADMK) are among other members from the lok Sabha.
The Yadav-headed panel has picked up threads from Parliamentary committee on personnel , public grievances , law and justice that scrutinized in detail 'Feasibility of Holding Simultaneous Elections to the House of People (lok Sabha) and State legislative Assemblies' and Presented its report to the Rajya Sabha on 17 December, 2015, and lok Sabha on 17 December, 2015.
This panel of which Yadav was also a member was chaired by Dr. E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan.
The Natchiappan committee felt that one-time poll across the country was not possible immediately but a gradual advancement towards that end could be made by six-month advancement of polls for lok Sabha or state assemblies.