Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has called for a “structural reset” of India’s federal system, proposing that the Constitution be amended to give more powers to states, PTI reported..
Stalin said that India’s Constitution had been amended 106 times in 76 years and argued that it could be amended again to vest state governments with the necessary powers.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief stated that meaningful federalism was “not about control, but about trust, autonomy, and governance that responds to people’s realities”.
Stalin tabled the first part of the Justice Kurian Joseph Committee report on Centre-states relations in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on Wednesday.
During his address in the Assembly, he said: "Federalism is not a concession to the states, it is a protective shield for the nation itself.”
In an opinion article for The Hindu, Stalin argued that although the Constitution of India is federal in structure, it was framed with a pronounced centralising bias.
According to Stalin, centralising tendencies were reinforced in the decades after Independence by the dominance of a single national party at both Union and state levels.
He wrote in the article for The Hindu that although the rise of coalition governments and regional parties later created a more balanced federal order, centralisation had continued through constitutional amendments, Union legislation on concurrent list subjects, conditional Finance Commission transfers and centrally sponsored schemes.
The High-Level Committee on Centre-state relations constituted by the Tamil Nadu government in April is chaired by Justice Kurian Joseph, a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India, with K Ashok Vardhan Shetty and M Naganathan as members.
Part I of its report, submitted on Monday to the chief minister addresses subjects including the role of governors, language policy, delimitation, elections, education, health and the goods and services tax, The Hindu reported.
Two further parts are under preparation.
Stalin has for long accused the Union government of withholding funds as a tactic to coerce states to adopt centrally-mandated programmes.
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