Akhilesh Yadav's pitch for ‘one nation, one election’: Start with Uttar Pradesh

Akhilesh Yadav suggests a pilot programme of simultaneous elections in Uttar Pradesh to test the Election Commission's capability and know the public opinion.

A day after the Union government constituted a committee to explore the feasibility of "one nation, one election", Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday suggested a pilot programme in Uttar Pradesh. The former chief minister said that simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly elections in India's most populous state would not only test the capability of the Election Commission of India (ECI) but the BJP would also get the idea of “how eager the people are to remove them from power.”

The government on Friday formed a panel headed by former president Ram Nath Kovind to explore the feasibility of "one nation, one election", opening the possibility of Lok Sabha polls being advanced so that they could be held with a string of state assembly elections. The surprise move by the government became the latest flashpoint between the ruling BJP and the opposition bloc INDIA, which slammed the decision as a "threat" to the country's federal structure.

Akhilesh Yadav, who is also part of the INDIA bloc, said, “An experiment is done before every big project, (and) on the basis of this we are suggesting that before implementing 'One Nation-One Election', the BJP government should try conducting Lok Sabha and Legislative Assembly elections simultaneously in Uttar Pradesh.”

“On the one hand, it will show the Election Commission's capability as well the public opinion, and the BJP will also come to know how the people are angry against the BJP and how eager they are to remove it from power,” he said in a social media post in Hindi.

Since coming to power in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been a strong votary for the idea of simultaneous polls, citing the financial burden caused by the almost continuous election cycle and jolt to development work during the polling period.

Opposition leaders, however, called it a diversionary tactic of the ruling BJP.

"No matter how many diversions and distractions the ruling regime throws at the people, the citizens of India shall not be betrayed anymore," Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said on X, without making any direct reference to the formation of the committee.