'One nation, one poll' needs many legislation: CEC OP Rawat

NEW DELHI: Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat has said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘One Nation One Election’ idea can be implemented only after Parliament legislates on it. Rawat, who assumed office on Tuesday, had earlier said that the EC would be logistically prepared by September to conduct general and assembly elections simultaneously.

“Legislation, however, has to take precedence over logistics. We cannot do anything till a legal framework is put in place,” he said on Tuesday.“ The election commission had communicated with the law ministry in 2015 on the issue and we have highlighted the necessary changes required,” he said. Constitutional amendments flagged by the EC in its communication with the law ministry included provisions to Articles 83, 85, 172, 174 and 356 of the Constitution that pertain to fixing terms of the Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies.

Clarifying the ECs stand on the issue of anonymous electoral bonds being introduced for political funding, Rawat said that the EC was still formulating its opinion on it. Commission officials are examining the notification and EC will take it up for consideration in a day or two, he said. With the EC courting controversy over the reliability and security of Electronic Voting Machines and the use of VVPAT machines to tally votes, Rawat said that the EC will soon take a call on extending the tallying of votes in more than one polling booth.


“We started tallying votes with the paper trail of VVPAT machines in one polling booth of each constituency as a pilot in the assembly polls of Gujarat and HP and other bypolls. We are still studying the statistics of the same and take a decision on scaling it up soon,” he said.