CHENNAI: The ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu was in principle agreeable to the proposal to hold simultaneous polls to Parliament and state assemblies, but wants it to be considered after 2021, when the present state assembly's term would expire. The view was conveyed through a letter to the Law Commission and it will be put forth again by AIADMK leaders during the panel's two-day deliberations on the matter being held in Delhi from today.
Senior leader and Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar, who was speaking to reporters in Chennai, replied to a question on the consultations by the Centre on holding simultaneous polls and the government's stand. He said, “The tenure of the (present) Tamil Nadu Assembly is till 2021” and hence assembly election should not be combined with the Lok Sabha poll scheduled for next year. He added that simultaneous polls in Tamil Nadu may be considered in 2024. Jayakumar said that though the proposal to hold simultaneous polls to Parliament and state assemblies was agreeable in principle for the AIADMK which meant “toeing the line of Amma (late chief minister Jayalalithaa).”
In 2015, Jayalalithaa had conveyed to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Law and Justice that her party favoured the idea of simultaneous polls in principle. She had however, flagged “some key issues” that had to be addressed before the new mechanism could be put in place. The Law Commission is holding consultations at Delhi with all the national and state parties on the feasibility of holding simultaneous polls.
Meanwhile, the Opposition DMK has rejected the idea, terming the Law Commission's proposal “a complete misadventure that will decimate the federal structure.” DMK working president MK Stalin said an earlier Law Commission during the tenure of AB Vajpayee in 1999 had reported on the issue exhaustively. “Where Parliament is sceptical whether this idea can be ever implemented this redundant exercise of producing a duplicative report that has no chances of being legislated appears questionable and if I may say, useless, both from legal and political standpoint,” Stalin said.
“On the contrary, there is the real danger of diminishing the Law Commission's credibility,” he added.
