CM Mamata Banerjee not going to Delhi for 'One Nation One Election' meeting

KOLKATA: Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Monday cancelled her trip to Delhi where she was supposed to meet former President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday. Kovind heads the high-level committee on 'One Nation One Election'.

Banerjee said she had spoken to Kovind and apologised for her inability to meet him. "I narrated my inability and like a perfect gentleman, he agreed to accept the representation from our party. MPs Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Kalyan Banerjee will now meet him and Kovindji said it was not a problem. I told him that we have the state Budget on Feb 8 for which my presence here is more important as some nitty-gritty is to be looked into. On Monday, at the cabinet meeting, we discussed the draft Budget."

The CM said that she had wanted to meet Kovind to express her views and that she was against the 'One Nation One Election' concept.

In Jan, Banerjee had written to Niten Chandra, secretary of the high-level committee and had refused to agree to the proposition. She had also questioned if India was heading towards a presidential form of govt like that of the US. "You seem to be conveying some sort of a unilateral top-down 'decision' already taken by the central government - to impose a structure that is against the spirit of a truly democratic and federal one laid down by the esteemed Constitution of India," she had written.

The CM also mentioned that all states had different election calendars and changing them was a huge political step.