Mallikarjun Kharge calls simultaneous polls 'impossible', hours after PM Modi's strong pitch

“The PM has to take everybody into confidence, then only this will happen. This is impossible,” Kharge asserted.

Hours after prime minister Narendra Modi endorsed simultaneous polls, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge dismissed the concept as ‘impossible.'

PTI File Photo: Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacts with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. CPI national general secretary D. Raja is also seen.

For ‘One Nation, One Election,’ the prime minister will have to take everybody into confidence in Parliament, and that is ‘impossible,’ Kharge asserted on Thursday.

“What PM Modi has said, he will not do it. Because when it (simultaneous election) comes in Parliament, he has to take everybody into confidence, then only this will happen. This is impossible. One Nation, One Election is impossible,” ANI quoted the senior politician as saying.

Earlier, speaking in Gujarat's Kevadia, the PM made the pitch for simultaneous polls in his speech on National Unity Day, the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the country's first deputy prime minister, also its first home minister.

“We are now working towards One Nation, One Election which will strengthen India's great democracy, give optimum outcome of India's resources…the country will gain fresh momentum in our dream of achieving a developed India. Today, India is moving towards One Nation, One Civil Code that is a Secular Civil Code,” prime minister Modi declared in a remark similar to the one he made in his address on Independence Day.

Last month, the Union Cabinet approved the Kovind committee's report on ‘One Nation, One Election,’ paving the way to make simultaneous polls a reality in the near future. The high-power panel, headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind, submitted the report to his successor, incumbent President Droupadi Murmu, in March.