Dehradun: Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Wednesday participated in a dialogue program with the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the topic “One Country, One Election” at a hotel on Mussoorie Road. On this occasion, he welcomed and greeted the Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee P. P. Chaudhary and all the members of the committee.
The Chief Minister said that ‘One Country One Election’ is an important initiative towards making our democracy more strong, effective and inclusive. He said that our election system has been effective and strong despite the diversity, but due to elections being held at different times, the code of conduct is imposed repeatedly, due to which all the work of the states comes to a standstill. Whenever elections come, a large number of personnel have to be removed from the main work and put on election duty.
The Chief Minister said that in the last three years, due to the code of conduct for the assembly, Lok Sabha and civic elections in the state, the administrative machinery of the state was deprived of the process of taking policy decisions for 175 days. For a small state with limited resources, these 175 days are important from the point of view of governance. The Chief Minister said that the entire expenditure burden of the assembly elections is borne by the state government and the expenditure burden of the Lok Sabha elections is borne by the central government. If both the elections are held together, then the expenditure burden on the state and the central government will be equally halved. By holding both the elections together, there will be a saving of about 30 to 35 percent in the total expenditure. This can be used in many areas of the state like health, education, road, water, agriculture and women empowerment. The Chief Minister said that in Uttarakhand, the time from June to September is the time of rain along with the Chardham Yatra, in such a situation, many problems have to be faced due to the election program. Apart from this, the election process should not be scheduled during the last quarter of the financial year from January to March. High school and intermediate board examinations in the months of February-March put additional pressure on administrative resources. He said that “one country one election” is important in hilly and difficult geographical states like Uttarakhand.
The Chief Minister said that it is difficult to reach polling stations in the remote areas of Uttarakhand, due to which the election process takes more time and resources. It is also challenging for voters in hilly areas to participate in elections, due to frequent elections, people’s inclination towards voting decreases and voting percentage also decreases.
