Simultaneous polls will turn India into managed democracy, says AAP

NEW DELHI: Rejecting the idea of simultaneous polls floated by the Narendra Modi government, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday said that such a system would turn India into a “managed democracy”.

AAP leader Ashish Khetan, who appeared before the Law Commission to present his party’s views, said after the meet: “We are against the idea of the so-called one-nation-one-poll because it will turn India’s federal democracy into a managed democracy.”

He added that for simultaneous polls to Lok Sabha and state assemblies to happen, the Constitution of India will have to be “mutilated and rewritten completely”.

“What will be left will be a pretense of democracy. The current dispensation will curtail the democratic rights of the people of this country. It will snatch away people’s right to vote or vote out a government. There will be a domination of muscle and money power,” Khetan said.

Slamming the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) for its absence from the Law Commission’s meeting, he said it was “bizarre” that the party which floated the idea is itself missing from the discussion.

The AAP leader also emphasised how simultaneous elections would turn a “thriving, open and transparent democracy” of India into a “Stalinist democracy” where people will get the right to vote once in five years and not get the chance of self-correction if the chosen government fails to impress.

“You are taking away the people’s right to self-correction because often we have seen in this country that people vote differently in Parliament elections and six months down the line, people vote differently in a state election,” Khetan argued.

“It is basically a reeking of a dictatorial mindset,” he said.