Team Herald
NEW DELHI: The Bhartiya Janata Party are campaigning at every opportunity for the simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections as repeatedly enunciated by Prime Minister Modi.
Party general secretary Bhupender Yadav from Rajasthan had listed a resolution in this regard in the Lok Sabha on Friday that could not be taken up as the Chairman adjourned the House within 20 minutes to prevent another day of ruckus by the Congress members.
Yadav want amendment of the election and other related laws forthwith for the simultaneous polls to give clear five years to the incumbent government to focus on governance.
BJP member Satyanarayan Jatia from Madhya Pradesh and Akali Dal member Sardar Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa went a step further to ask the law minister during question hour in the Rajya Sabha to go for simultaneous polls not only in Lok Sabha and Assemblies but also in local bodies and gram panchayats “to save public money, time and energy of administration.” The minister’s answer did not come as the question hour could not take place.
Yadav said in the absence of the simultaneous polls, hardly any year passes without election in one or other part of the country which is highly time consuming and monumental waste of financial, manpower and other resources.
Besides the simultaneous polls,Yadav suggested a score of other electoral reforms. These include:
— Single electoral role in the country to weed out duplicate voters;
— Allow online e-ballot or e-voting to enable the voters away from their places of residence for different reasons can exercise their right to franchise;
— Implement state funding of polls and regulate utilisation of funds by the political parties;
— Bring transparency in political funding;
— Link Aadhaar number with voter card; and
— Permit NRIs and Indians staying abroad to cast their vote during elections.
