SAD Supports ‘One Nation, One Election’

SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal has supported the ‘One Nation, One Election’ proposal of the Modi government. Badal reasons, ‘Before 1967, there used to be a single election across the country. People would go and vote for Lok Sabha members and Vidhan Sabha members on the same day. It is only after some of the state governments were destabilized that the system started falling apart and elections in states began to be held separately from the Lok Sabha elections.’ For a while now, Indian PM Narendra Modi has advocated for the concept of One Nation, One Election. The idea is instead of conducting elections in each state when a state’s five-year government term is over, India should conduct one election over a stipulated time for both the states and the nation. This comes from BJP’s reading that they enjoy immense popularity in various states, especially in the north and east of the country. BJP estimates they could influence such an election with a nationalistic flavor and win in those states where they do not have a great presence. However, such an election could be detrimental to regional parties that are not in a tie-up with BJP such as the Trinamool Congress in Bengal and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu, and others. Though SAD is a regional party, its support of the concept shows they are interested in coming closer to the BJP and re-stitching its alliance that lasted from 1996 to 2020 when they broke ties over the draconian Farm Laws.