ONOE will affect regional parties’ prospects: AAP

PM Modi attending the all-party meeting to discuss ONOE in 2019. File Pic/Getty Images

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday said it opposes the idea of One Nation One Election (ONOE) as it will damage the idea of parliamentary democracy, the basic structure of the Constitution and federal polity of the country. AAP said that ONOE will be unable to deal with hung legislature, will actively encourage the evil of anti-defection and open buying-selling of MLAs/MPs.

"Cost sought to be saved by simultaneous polls is a mere 0.1 per cent of the annual budget. Tenets of Constitution and democracy cannot be sacrificed for narrow financial gains and administrative convenience," AAP National Secretary Pankaj Gupta wrote in an official letter to the poll panel's Secretary Niten Chandra.

He said that the tenets of the Constitution and democracy cannot be sacrificed for narrow financial gains and administrative convenience. "Conducting polls simultaneously will detrimentally impact the Indian multi-party system, where several parties have emerged to represent the voices of those who were erstwhile marginalised in mainstream politics," the letter reads.

It added that while notable exceptions exist, evidence suggests that a very large number of voters tend to vote for the same party when elections to both the State Assembly and the Lok Sabha are held simultaneously or within a gap of six months.

"Voters tend to vote for the same party in the Assembly Election for which they had voted during the Lok Sabha election. This creates an unfair advantage for the national parties. While dominant regional parties will also benefit from this pattern, smaller regional parties will bear the brunt," the letter said.

Earlier, the Congress and TMC had also opposed the idea of ONOE. The ONOE committee has issued a public notice inviting suggestions from the general public. The committee said that this initiative has been taken for making appropriate changes in the existing legal administrative framework to enable simultaneous elections in the country.

The government has constituted a high level committee led by former President Ram Nath Kovind. As per the Terms of Reference, the committee is for looking into holding simultaneous elections on a permanent basis.

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