One Nation One election: Mamata Banerjee skips Delhi rally, sends two of her party MPs

The Chief Minister said that TMC MPs Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Kalyan Banerjee will be present at the meeting in the national capital.

Calcutta: Citing arrangements related to the upcoming state budget, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she would skip the 'One Nation One Election' committee meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday. Speaking to media at the state secretariat, the Trinamool Congress supremo said she has communicated with the committee's head, former President Ramnath Kovind, about her inability to attend the meeting.

“I have canceled my trip to New Delhi… The state budget will be presented in the assembly on February 8, and there are only two days left. In this situation, I had to call off the visit,” Banerjee told reporters. “I have already spoken to Kovind ji about this,” she said.

The Chief Minister said that TMC MPs Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Kalyan Banerjee will be present at the meeting in the national capital.

The committee is mandated to examine and make recommendations on the conduct of simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha, state assemblies, municipalities and panchayats, subject to the existing constitutional framework.

Banerjee had written a letter to the panel members last month expressing her disagreement with the concept of simultaneous polls, arguing that it would go against the basic structure of “constitutional arrangements”.

(With PTI inputs)