President Pranab Mukherjee Favours Simultaneous Lok Sabha, Assembly Elections

President Pranab Mukherjee, in his Republic Day address to the nation, has said time is ripe for a constructive debate on electoral reforms and a return to the practice of the early decades after Independence when elections to Lok Sabha and state assemblies were held simultaneously.He also said it was for the Election Commission to take this exercise forward in consultation with political parties.“We have a noisy democracy. Yet, we need more and not less of democracy. The strength of our democracy is evidenced by the fact that over 66 per cent of the total electorate of 834 million voted in the 2014 General Elections. The depth and breadth of our democracy sparkles in the regular elections being held in our panchayati raj institutions. And yet, our legislatures lose sessions to disruptions when they should be debating and legislating on issues of importance. Collective efforts must be made to bring the focus back to debate, discussion and decision-making,” he said.He also observed that demonetisation, while immobilising black money and fighting corruption, might have led to temporary slowdown of economic activity.“As more and more transactions become cashless, it will improve the transparency of the economy,” he said.He said India’s pluralism and her social, cultural, linguistic and religious diversity were our greatest strengths.“Our tradition has always celebrated the ‘argumentative’ Indian; not the ‘intolerant’ Indian. Multiple views, thoughts and philosophies have competed with each other peacefully for centuries in our country. A wise and discerning mind is necessary for democracy to flourish. More than the unison of ideas, a healthy democracy calls for conformity to the values of tolerance, patience and respect for others. These values must reside in the hearts and minds of every Indian; inculcating in them a temperament of understanding and responsibility,” he added.Read the full text of the President’s speech here. Fellow citizens: On the eve of the sixty-eighth Republic Day of our nation, I extend warm greetings to all of you in India and abroad. I convey my special greetings to members of our Armed Forces, Para-military Forces and Internal Security Forces. I pay my tribute to the brave soldiers and security personnel who made the supreme sacrifice of their lives in defending India’s territorial integrity and maintaining law and order.Brothers and sisters: When India attained freedom on 15th August 1947, we did not have an instrument of governance of our own. We waited till 26th January, 1950 when the Indian people gave to themselves a Constitution to secure for all its citizens, justice, liberty, equality, and gender and economic equity. We promised to promote fraternity, dignity of the individual, and unity and integrity of the nation.On that day, we became the largest democracy of the world. The faith and commitment of people gave life to our Constitution and our founding fathers, wisely and carefully, steered the new nation past its troubles of being a poor economy with huge regional imbalances and a vast citizenry deprived of even basic necessities. It goes to the credit of the strong institutions of democracy built by our founders that for the last six and a half decades, Indian democracy has been an oasis of stability in the region troubled by unrest. From a population of 360 million in 1951, we are now a 1.3 billion strong nation. Even then, our per capita income has shown a ten-fold increase, poverty ratio has declined by two-thirds, average life expectancy has more than doubled, and literacy rate has shown a four-fold increase. We are today the fastest growing amongst the major economies of the world. We are the second largest reservoir of scientific and technical manpower, the third largest army, the sixth member of the nuclear club, the sixth member in the race for space, and the tenth largest industrial power. From a net food grains importing country, India is now a leading exporter of food commodities. The journey so far has been eventful, sometimes painful, but most of the times, exhilarating. What has brought us thus far will take us further ahead. But we will have to learn to adjust our sails, quickly and deftly, to the winds of change. Evolutionary and incremental growth will have to accommodate rapid disruptions brought in by advances of science and technology. Innovation, more so inclusive innovation, will have to become a way of life. Education will have to keep pace with technology. In the race between man and machine, the winner will have to be job generation. The velocity of technology adoption will call for a workforce that is willing to learn and adapt. Our education system will have to join hands with innovation to prepare our youth for life-long learning.Fellow citizens: Our economy has been performing well despite the challenging global economic conditions. In the first half of 2016-17, it grew at a rate of 7.2 percent – same as that last year – showing sustained...

President Pranab Mukherjee Favours Simultaneous Lok Sabha, Assembly Elections

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