New Delhi: Supporting the idea of ‘One Nation One Election’, Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra said it is a good suggestion, but this will need a change in the Constitution and it is to be decided in Parliament.
In an exclusive interview to news agency ANI, Chandra said the Election Commission is fully prepared and is capable of conducting simultaneous elections.
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‘A decision has to be taken in Parliament’
"According to the Constitution, all the elections should be held simultaneously. The parliament elections that are held since independence, three of them are simultaneous elections. It is only later that sometimes the Assembly was dissolved, sometimes Parliament, which disturbed the schedule. 'One Nation One Election' is a good suggestion, but this needs a change in the Constitution," said Chandra.
He added: "An assembly which will not be able to complete the five-year term in the assembly will have to think about whether we can abolish it under the Constitution or we need to increase the tenure of parliament for simultaneous election in the country."
Chandra said Parliament has to decide whether it should take half of the assembly together and the next time take the other half, but the EC is fully prepared and capable of holding all the elections simultaneously and is ready to elect it only once in five years.
‘Vote should be safe and the voter should also be safe’
Sharing views on the recently concluded election in five states, Chandra said banning the rallies and padyatras was a tough decision.
While pointing out at the uncertainity aound Covid, Chandra said, "When this election process started from September, October, no one knew that the third wave of coronavirus was to come. But as we approached December, we felt that the Omicron was spreading. The commission discussed with the Union Health Secretary and talked to the Chief Secretary of the State and the State Health Secretary. We found that the Covid is spreading," he said.
"In some of the states, not everyone has been vaccinated, so the commission decided that there will be no physical rally in the first week of the beginning and there will be no padyatras, only a digital rally and at the same time you can do door-to-door campaigning, which is also in restricted numbers. The basic concept of commission is that the vote should be safe and the voter should also be safe," he stated in the interview.
The EC reviewed the situation every weekend with the chief secretary, health secretary and directed the chief secretary of election-bound states to vaccinate everyone and banning the rally will help in containing the spread of Covid-19. “On the other hand, we were slowly opening this ban. After every week, we relaxed by graded responses,” he added.
Assembly polls: CEC thanks political parties for support
"I would like to tell you that no political party has opposed it. I am thankful to all the political parties, also to the voters that they took our decision correctly and we had also increased the limit of expenditure to campaign through digital means. So there can be a campaigning in the hybrid model which can be replicated further that you can also digitalise and physicalise it," said the CEC.
"No party has opposed this decision and all the parties have campaigned through a digital medium. The mode was changed. Since work from home started in the second wave of coronavirus, the companies were not closed. Similarly, the campaign did not stop, the campaign started in another way,” he added.
He noted apart from Manipur all other polling states have given the first dose of the vaccine to its 100% population before the elections. “The second dose was also given to most people. In the polling station also, we had maintained safety, due to which the voter was also safe and the voting was also safe.”