HYDERABAD: Stating that frequent elections would impair development in the country, former Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday backed the “One Nation - One Election” idea. In an informal chat with a select group of reporters here, he also said ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’ were interchangeable as these names were mentioned in the Constitution. He recalled that simultaneous polls were conducted in the country till 1971, but later the cycle was affected due to the advance elections held in 1972.
“The Parliamentary Standing Committee, the Law Commission and the Election Commission of India recommended simultaneous polls. The general public too welcomed this proposal,” he pointed out. Considering the logistics involved in the elections, including deployment of security forces, and others, simultaneous polls should be conducted, he said.
“Personally, I feel that we should go by the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee, Law Commission and Election Commission. We should have simultaneous polls for Lok Sabha and Assemblies, as well local body elections,” he said.
Referring to the trend of politicians changing their loyalties, he said: “The issue of defections could be taken care of by amending the existing anti-defection laws. If a leader wants to join another party after being elected as a candidate of one party, he should first resign from the post he is elected for,” he added.
Speaking about calling “India” as “Bharat”, the former Vice-President said: “The word Bharat is in the Constitution. The word Bharat has been in use from time immemorial and it was mentioned in the epics too. Only foreigners called the country as India,” he said, adding that both India and Bharat were interchangeable.“All the Indians say Bharat Mata Ki Jai. But, no one says India Mataki Jai. This is my view,” he said.
He hoped for an early consensus on Women’s Reservation Bill. He wanted a debate on the implementation of Uniform Civil Code (UCC) as the Article 44 of the Constitution and directive principles talk about the UCC.
In the recent debate on Sanatan Dharma, Venkaiah Naidu said: “People have been following this Dharma, which was a concept of civilisation. Debate on Sanatan Dharma is unnecessary and meaningless.”