ONE-CLICK REPUBLIC

On September 1, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance government appointed an eight-man committee headed by former president Ram Nath Kovind to examine and suggest the way forward for its One Nation, One Poll (ONOP) proposal.

- Amarnath K. Menon

Just two days later-on a Sunday-law ministry officials briefed Kovind on the constitutional provisions pertaining to the proposal and discussed what kind of assistance his committee may need to look into the subject. Many also speculated that ONOP could be the surprise awaited in the upcoming special session of Parliament between September 18-22. If not haste, that's certainly extraordinary persistence on the part of the BJP.

With the Lok Sabha polls due in less than a year, Opposition parties have raised apprehensions about the move, stating that conducting simultaneous polls will spell disaster for India's multi-party framework and thrust the country into a presidential system of governance. They also point to bias in the composition of the committee and believe the real intent is to push through laws that will ultimately benefit only Narendra Modi and enable his government to evade accountability. What makes these concerns seem legitimate is the fact that only one Opposition leader, Congress's Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, was appointed to the Kovind committee, though he ultimately declined to be part of it, dismissing the exercise as an "eyewash" and claiming that the committee's "terms of reference" were such that they would only "guarantee its conclusions". Thus, the Kovind panel, as of now, is devoid of any non-BJP political leader, except Ghulam Nabi Azad, who quit the Congress last year to form his own regional party in Jammu and Kashmir.