New Delhi: The idea of simultaneous general and state assembly elections being fervently pushed by the government is a “backdoor method” of intiducing presidential form of government in India, CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury said in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
“If you (government) want simultaneous elections, are you ready to remove Article 356 of the Constitution?” the Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary asked the government during a discussion on electoral reforms.
Article 356 gives the Union government power to dismiss a state government or dissolve a state assembly or keep it under suspended animation in the event of failure of the constitutional machinery in that state.
The power has been used quite frequently by central governments, beginning with independent India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who in July 1959 dismissed the E.M.S. Namboodiripad government in Kerala.
“Unless you remove Article 356, you can’t have simultaneous elections,” Yechury said, wondering what would be the course of action if a coalition partner withdraws support and the government is reduced to a minority.
“It is a surreptitious manner in which our parliamentary democracy is sought to be substituted by the presidential form of government. This is unacceptable because for a country as diverse as India, we can’t have a presidential form of government,” he said.
The communist leader also advocated putting a cap on the expenditure of political parties and mandatory use of voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines with electronic voting machines.
“The Supreme Court has ordered, and the Election Commission is ready. Why are we not doing it (paper trail of votes)?” he asked.
