Hyderabad parliamentarian Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday welcomed the Supreme Court verdict in the electoral bonds case, and sought to know the legitimacy of elections since 2017.
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Mr. Owaisi, posted, “If these are unconstitutional and if these violate Article 19(1)(a), then what should we say about the legitimacy of elections since 2017? Are they not a big question mark on the legitimacy and transparency of elections since 2017?”
Mr. Owaisi, who is president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), opined that the SC judgement was “too late” and that it should have come sooner. However, the judgement, he stated, is the appeasement of a handful of corporates who “disproportionately funded BJP”.
“I opposed all corporate funding to political parties in my representation to the Standing Committee on Elections in 2017. I have consistently opposed this system,” he said, adding that the policy would be set by businesses and these unnamed corporations, instead of the the people.
In a separate development, the AIMIM chief recently met former President Ramnath Kovind and discussed several aspects of simultaneous elections and reiterated his opposition to One Nation One Election. In January he wrote a letter to the High Level Committee – One Nation, One Election (ONOE) reiterated his opposition to simultaneous elections. He contended that justifications of why ONOE should be had were “sidestepped”, and the focus was on how it could be implemented.
In his letter he pointed out that the NITI Aayog and Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law & Justice reports underscore the costs implications to the exchequer and touched upon a policy paralysis due to the implementation of the Model Code of Conduct. These documents, Mr. Owaisi said, did not attempt to explore other solutions apart from simultaneous elections.
“The Proposed Recommendations of the Law Commission would effectively modify the tenure of the State legislature and make it contingent on the tenure (or dissolution) of other States or the Union. Furthermore, the Proposed Recommendations aim to implicitly increase the use of Article 356 in cases where a government loses majority in the House before the completion of its term. Both these proposals strike at the very root of the Constitution,” he wrote.
Published - February 15, 2024 09:35 pm IST
