Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday dared the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre to hold simultaneous General and Assembly elections in 2019, PTI reported.
Yadav’s statement came days after an electoral reforms committee formed by the Uttar Pradesh government suggested that elections to state Assemblies whose terms expire before 2021 could be held along with the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. States whose Assembly terms will expire after 2021 can have elections along with the Lok Sabha polls in 2024, the committee suggested. Polls are due in Uttar Pradesh in 2022.
The committee submitted a report to Chief Minister Adityanath on Monday, endorsing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea of simultaneous national and state elections. The state will send the report to the Centre, Adityanath said.
“We have no problem if the voters’ list is linked with Aadhar number,” Yadav said on Wednesday. “We have no problems with ‘one nation one election’. I ask them [BJP] to implement ‘one nation one election’ from 2019 itself and hold Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls with the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.”
The Samajwadi Party chief’s comments come amid questions over whether the support for the Bharatiya Janata Party is waning in the state. The saffron party has lost four crucial bye-elections in the state in recent months – Lok Sabha seats in Kairana, Gorakhpur and Phulpur and the Noorpur Assembly seat.
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