Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has refused to be part of the eight-member high-level committee formed to explore the 'One Nation One Election' proposal. A government notification announced the members of the panel headed by former president Ram Nath Kovind, on Saturday.
Chowdhury cleared his stance in a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday. He said he had come to know that he had been appointed a member of the high-level committee on simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and 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," he said in his letter.
"Moreover, the sudden attempt to thrust a constitutionally suspect, pragmatically non-feasible and logistically unimplementable idea on the nation, months before the general elections, raises serious concerns about ulterior motives of the government," he said in the letter.
Meanwhile, protest is brewing in Congress against excluding the current Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge from the committee. While Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has mentioned it in his letter, other senior Congress leaders have also openly raised their voices.
"This is a deliberate insult to the system of Parliamentary democracy. In these circumstances, I have no option but to decline your invitation," said Chowdhury said on Kharge's exclusion.
The Congress has also questioned the Centre on why it chose to exclude Kharge but include former Leader of Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Taking to social media platform X, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said, "We believe that the High-Level Committee on Simultaneous Elections is nothing but a systematic attempt to sabotage India's parliamentary democracy."
"In a shocking insult to Parliament, the BJP has appointed a former LOP to the Committee instead of Rajya Sabha LOP Sh. Mallikarjun @kharge ji. First, they bring this gimmick to distract from the Adani Mega Scam, unemployment, price rise and other pressing issues of the people. Then, to make matters worse, they try to tilt this committee's balance by excluding fierce opponents. What is the reason behind Kharge ji's exclusion? Is a leader who has risen from such a humble background to the top post of India's oldest party, leading the entire opposition in the Upper House, an inconvenience for the BJP-RSS?" Venugopal wrote on X.
The Congress has also alleged that the Centre aimed to sabotage India's parliamentary democracy through the move.
Congress leader P Chidambaram also hit out at the panel, saying the "one nation, one election" is a political-legal question. "Actually, it is more political than legal. Whether the question deserves to be considered at this stage is highly debatable."
"All major political parties are stakeholders in this issue and they have not been consulted in forming the 8-member committee. The 8-member committee has just one member from a major Opposition political party," he wrote on X.
The former finance minister added that he could "recognise only one acknowledged constitutional lawyer in the committee". "Like every other issue sponsored by the BJP, the issue of One Nation, One Election seems to be a pre-determined and pre-packaged issue," he said.
