VIJAYAWADA: Terming the ‘One Nation - One Election’ proposal a bold and out of the box initiative, YSRC chief and AP Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has said his party supports it for the free and fair election process and enhanced participatory development.
Participating in the meeting convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with presidents of political parties to elicit their views on issues, including One Nation - One Election’ in New Delhi on Wednesday, Jagan said that in AP, elections to Parliament and State Assembly are being held together since 1999.
“Therefore, we have been part of the One Nation - One Election paradigm for 20 years, that is now being proposed. Prima facie, One Nation – One Election principle will reduce electoral expenditure, increase voter participation as elections are held once in five years, and reduce administrative disruption,” he noted.
Jagan said there is every likelihood of the party in power in the State misusing the official machinery for its own benefit if the elections to Lok Sabha are conducted separately, thus disrupting free and fair election process. “It will be like conducting byelections in the State for the party in power with absolute deemed control over the official machinery,” he pointed out.
Jagan, however, raised the issue of different State Assemblies having different tenures. “I am confident that Prime Minister Modi will evolve a mechanism to operationalise this initiative in the spirit of federal architecture of the Constitution,” he said.
Speaking about ways to improve the productivity of Parliament, Jagan, whose YSRC is the fourth largest party in the Lok Sabha with 22 members, raised the issue of Special Category Status for AP again.
“The commitment made by Parliament, supported by both the ruling and opposition parties to grant SCS to the residuary AP as a precondition to bifurcation in February 2014, has remained unimplemented. How long can people who revere this temple of democracy retain their faith if the solemn assurance made unanimously by Parliament as a precondition for bifurcation is not fulfilled even after five years?” he questioned.
Jagan maintained that it is imperative that every assurance and commitment made by Parliament is implemented in a time-bound manner. “Only then, the aggrieved political parties will stop agitating in the House,” he said.
Raising the issue of defections, Jagan said three MPs of YSRC in the previous Lok Sabha defected to the TDP and brazenly participated in their meetings and affairs. Similarly, 23 MLAs of the YSRC in the previous Assembly were also lured by the TDP through blatant abuse of corrupt and black money.
Some of them were even made ministers in the previous TDP government abusing the authority. In both the cases, none of the lawmakers was disqualified by the Speakers of the respective Houses.
“This makes mockery of not only anti-defection law but also the people’s mandate,” Jagan said, and proposed that matters relating to the defection of the elected members should be disposed of by the presiding officer within 90 days.
“Further, I request that the Representation of People’s Act should be amended by incorporating a provision to disqualify the political party from participating in electoral politics that admits MPs, MLAs and MLCs of other parties without getting them resigned,” the YSRC chief said.