Janata Dal (United) backs Centre’s ‘one nation one election’ plan

The Janata Dal (United) on Saturday extended its support for the Centre’s “one nation, one election” plan and submitted a memorandum to a high-level committee headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind.

The “one nation, one election” plan, first floated by the Bharatiya Janata Party in its manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, involves conducting elections to the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies at the same time.

In September, the Centre had notified an eight-member high-level committee headed by Kovind to look into the feasibility of implementing the plan.

The proponents of the plan argue that holding simultaneous elections will save the government signficant sums of money that can be used for developmental works.

The Opposition parties, however, have opposed the idea on the grounds that it contradicts the structure of the Constitution. They have also said that simulaneous polls will “damage the idea of parliamentary democracy”.

On Saturday a delegation of the Janata Dal (United), led by its general secretary Sanjay Kumar Jha and the party’s Parliamentary Party leader Rajiv Ranjan Singh, submitted the memorandum to Kovind.

The party, which recently returned to an alliance with the BJP in Bihar, listed ten advantages of simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, saying that the plan would save large sums of money and...

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