Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said that he was “in principle” in favour of simultaneous elections from the Parliament to the Panchayat level in India.
“In principle, I favour simultaneous elections for all five-year term elected bodies from Parliament to Panchayat level…Provisions should be made in the statute to ensure that the terms of all these elected bodies do not end before the stipulated five years as elections keep happening and then the model code of conduct hampers development while creating administrative problems,” Mr. Kumar told media persons on the sideline of his weekly Lok Samvad (public interaction) programme in Patna. He, however, doubted whether simultaneous elections will take place in 2019. “A debate on this issue is going on in the public domain, and if a consensus emerges this could happen in 2024,” he said.
Mr. Kumar also disapproved of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s remark at the University of California in Berkeley, U.S. last week that dynasties were a fact of life in India. “To say dynasties are acceptable in India is not true... To say only a person born into a political family has the merit to rule is wrong… if a comparison is made, it will be found that performance of non-dynasts are far better than those from dynasts”, he said.
