‘One Nation – Simultaneous Elections’ is the need of the hour: Prez

New Delhi: Endorsing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project of holding of Simultaneous Elections, President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday said such a new changeover in the country’s electoral system is the need of the hour and that this would facilitate “accelerated development”, thereby benefiting the country.
”One Nation – Simultaneous Elections is the need of the hour, which would facilitate accelerated development, thereby benefiting our countrymen. With such a system in place, all political parties, according to their respective ideologies, will be able to better utilise their energy towards development and public welfare,” Mr Kovind said in his address to the Joint Sitting of Parliament.
The President urged all members of Parliament to seriously ponder over this development oriented proposal of ‘One Nation – Simultaneous Elections’.
”It is the belief of my Government that political parties, States and 130 crore countrymen are all committed to India’s integrated and accelerated development. Our vibrant democracy has also matured adequately,” he said, adding that during the last few decades, due to frequent elections being held in some part of the country or the other, the pace and continuity of development programmes have been impacted.
The President’s address mentioning about the proposed move to introduce new system of simultaneous elections came a day after Prime Minister chaired an all party meeting on the issue.
As many as 21 party chiefs and senior leaders attended the meeting on Wednesday which was, however, boycotted by Congress, Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi, BSP and DMK.
The meeting of heads of political parties out of 40 political parties which were invited for the meeting, only three parties sent their written submissions.
Notable among those who did not attend the meeting were West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati. Her former alliance partner in UP Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, DMK chief M K Stalin also did not attend the meeting.
President in his address said the people of the country have demonstrated their wisdom by delivering a clear verdict both on state and national issues.
Mr Kovind congratulated the Election Commission as well the security forces for successful completion of the election process in the world’s largest democracy.
”I congratulate the entire team of Election Commission for successful completion of the world’s largest election. The contribution of employees of various institutions, as well as the security forces in successful conduct of the electoral process is praiseworthy,” Mr Kovind said.
The President’s remarks applauding EC are significant as the poll panel has come under criticism by the opposition parties on various pros and cons of conducting elections, specially on the possibility of misuse of EVMs.
Mr Kovind said more than 61 crore voters of the country set a new record by casting their votes and enhanced the credibility of India’s democracy in the world.
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