Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said that the idea of ‘one nation, one election’ is an attack on the Indian Union and all its states. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the Congress MP from Kerala’s Wayanad wrote, “INDIA, that is Bharat, is a Union of States. The idea of ‘one nation, one election’ is an attack on the Indian Union and all its States.”
The Centre on Saturday named an eight-member high-level committee to “examine and make recommendations for holding simultaneous elections” to Lok Sabha, state assemblies, municipalities and panchayats, that will be headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind.
The members of the panel include: Home Minister Amit Shah and former Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, former Finance Commission Chairman N K Singh, former Lok Sabha Secretary General Subhash C Kashyap, senior advocate Harish Salve, and former Chief Vigilance Commissioner Sanjay Kothari. Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal will attend the committee’s meetings as a special invitee, the Law Ministry said in a notification.
The name of Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was also included in the panel and was the lone Opposition voice in the panel, however, he declined to to be part of the exercise.
In a terse, but strong letter to Home Minister Amit Shah, Chowdhury said he cannot be part of the committee, the “terms of reference” of which “have been prepared in a manner to guarantee its conclusions.” He called the exercise an “eyewash”.
“I have just got to know through the media and a Gazette notification is appeared that I have been appointed as a Member of the high-level committee on simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabhas. I have no hesitation whatsoever in declining to serve on the Committee whose terms of reference have been prepared in a manner to guarantee its conclusions. It is, I am afraid, a total eyewash,” Chowdhury wrote to Shah.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Sunday hit out at the BJP-led central government over ‘One Nation, One Election’ panel, saying that the timing of the committee is “highly suspect”.
“Its terms of reference have already determined its recommendations. The composition of the Committee is also a total give-away and the Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary last night very rightly refused to be part of it,” he wrote on X.