Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi on Tuesday said the Election Commission is prepared to simultaneously hold the general and State Assembly polls, provided there is a consensus among all political parties.
“As a Commission, this is our recommendation to the Law Ministry, that elections in the country can be held together for both State Assemblies as well as the Lok Sabha,” Mr. Zaidi said.
“To conduct these elections simultaneously we would need certain logistic arrangements in terms of procurement of more electronic machines, hiring of temporary workers, and staggering the election dates,” said Mr. Zaidi, who was here to attend the International Election Visitors programme on the invitation of the Australian Election Commission. “We are on board with our proposal that elections can be held together provided there is consensus, unanimity of opinion among the political parties and also there are amendments in the Constitution.”
The Commissioners were given familiarisation programme to understand the election processes and to internationalise the partnership among them.
“We were impressed with the simplicity of the Australian election process, the transparency, the amount of trust that is placed on a voter here, cooperation with political parties and the way the election campaigns are carried out,” the CEC said.
Asked what India can imitate from Australian election systems or processes, Mr. Zaidi said the Commission is looking at examining the postal ballot facility expansion for voters.
“We have small numbers right now who are allowed for postal ballots but we will have to examine this if we can expand this for other voters.”
