Consultations on simultanous polls a 'futile exercise: JD-S

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Terming the Law Commissions consultations on simultaneous polls a "futile exercise", the JD-S on Sunday said that the ruling BJP was just "testing the waters" through it with no real intentions of reforms in the electoral process.

"We categorically told the Commission that the government must first take into consideration the recommendations given by the Law Commission in the past on electoral reforms. Not even a single recommendations has been accepted by the government so far," Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) spokesman Danish Ali said after the meeting.

The Law Commission has invited all political parties for a face to face discussion on the idea of holding Lok Sabha and state assembly elections at the same time. The exercise continued on the second day on Sunday.

"This is a futile exercise. In a federal democracy you cannot think of simultaneous elections. In the series of poll reforms, first and foremost, there must be a ceiling on expenditure by political parties. But no one's talking about it.

"When we put it today before the Law Commission, they said the government had not given any reference to it and it was out of their purview. It clearly shows that the government is not sincere about electoral reforms. The BJP is just testing the waters," Ali said.

He contended that simultaneous polls could not be acceptable to regional parties as it would "kill" the regional parties.

He said the argument being given by the proponents of simultaneous polls that the Model Code of Conduct hampers development work was a "hollow excuse" as it comes into force for only 45 days while a government has a total of around 1,800 days in five years to do all the development work.

--IANS

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