A Ploy for Self-Coronation

The ONOE proposal to synchronise elections puts the dynamic democratic process at risk

THE Union Cabinet recently approved the recommendations of the Ram Nath Kovind-led committee on One Nation, One Election (ONOE). Although not implementable in the short term, it has huge diversionary potential and is fraught with the danger of creating a monolithic power structure in place of India's pluralistic democracy. Right since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, has not responded to a single issue coming from the people like unemployment, inflation, inequality, growing crises in every sphere and instead pushed for agendas like demonetisation, GST, Smart City Scheme, Make in India, etc.