NEW DELHI: A day after the BJP made a fresh push to hold the general and the assembly elections together, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) OP Rawat said simultaneous polls was not possible in current circumstances. Rawat said availability of VVPAT machines will be a major constraint to simultaneously hold polls in 11 states and the Lok Sabha election. Simultaneous polls would mean that the term of some state Assemblies needs to be either curtailed or extended, he said.
“If the term of some state Assemblies needs to be curtailed or extended, then a Constitutional amendment will be required..Extension or curtaining of tenure of any House is a difficult task without Constitutional amendments,” Rawat said.“Logistics arrangements with regard to 100 per cent availability of VVPATs will be a constraint,” the CEC said, adding that the delivery of VVPAT machines has already got delayed. “Instead of 30th September, it will be delivered by November. So in present condition, elections in December look impossible.”
Rawat said that on the issue of ‘One Nation, One Poll’, the Election Commission had given inputs and suggestions in 2015 itself regarding Constitutional amendments, security aspects and logistical issues.
“Moreover, additional police force, polling personnel will also be needed.” Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand are slated for polls towards the end of 2019.
Sources in the BJP said the elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, which are scheduled for this year, could be clubbed with the polls in Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Mizoram and Odisha. Officials said 17.4 lakh VVPATs would be delivered before November-end while the EVMs - 13.95 lakh ballot units and 9.3 lakh control units - will be delivered by September 30. Rawat had earlier said that If simultaneous elections were held in 2019, the Commission would need about 24 lakh EVMs.
During their discussion with the Law Commission on May 16, EC officials said they would need `4,500 crore to buy 12 lakh more EVMs and an equal number of VVPAT machines. That estimate was based on current prices. BJP president Amit Shah wrote to the Law Commission on Monday, supporting simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly elections. In his eight-page letter, the BJP chief said the opposition to simultaneous elections seems to be politically motivated. But, the Opposition parties have raised concern over the proposal, saying simultaneous elections would dilute India’s federal structure.