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India's polity becoming more unitary, peril for federalism: Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan
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....ndia's polity becoming more unitary, peril for federalism: Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan<BR>PTI News<BR>Dated:- 3-4-2025<BR>PTI<BR>Madurai, Apr 3 (PTI) Strong centralising features and emergency provisions were made in the Constitution as it was framed in the wake of large-scale communal violence and bloodshed following the partition, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Thursday, while ass....
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....erting that India's polity is becoming more and more unitary in nature even during normal times, which is a peril for federalism. Addressing a seminar on federalism held here on the sidelines of the 24th CPI(M) congress, along with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin and Karnataka Minister M C Sudhakar, Vijayan accused the BJP-led Centre of slashing funds for opposition-ruled states and claimed ....
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....that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime is unfavourable for the states. "If we look back a little into history, it can be seen that our Constitution was framed under abnormal circumstances, that is, in the aftermath of large-scale communal violence and bloodshed following the partition, at the dawn of independence. Given this atmosphere that prevailed during the time when the Constitution wa....
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....s being shaped, it came to contain very strong centralising features and emergency provisions," Vijayan said. "Be that as it may, the question that bothers us most in the present scenario is whether in recent times, our polity is becoming more and more unitary in nature even during normal times. This, I would say, is the peril faced by federalism in India today," he added. Vijayan said recent po....
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....litical actions have made the Centre-state relationship more asymmetrical. "Union-state relations in India have been made substantially more asymmetrical by some recent political actions. These weaken the already fragile base of federalism. Protecting the rights of the states and local governments and guarding against the gathering of the momentum of centralising tendencies is absolutely essentia....
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....l to protect democracy and civil liberties," the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader said. He claimed that unreasonable restrictions have been imposed on the borrowing limits of the states by unnaturally expanding constitutional provisions to include the borrowings of special purpose vehicles (SPVs) as that of the state governments. The Kerala chief minister further said the fiscal imbalan....
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....ce is being worsened by the expanding number of centrally-sponsored schemes, in which the states are being forced to bear an increasing cost burden. "Since 2015-16, the share of the states has increased from 25 per cent to 40 per cent in most of these schemes," he said. Sudhakar said under the Bharatiya Janata Party-led regime, cooperative federalism is under attack from the Union government mor....
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....e than ever before in independent India. "Cooperative federalism is not a choice. It is the soul of our Constitution," he said. "India belongs equally to all its states and no government has the moral right to reduce us as mere municipalities. The idea of India is not of one Centre ruling over many states. It is of many states strengthening the Union," the Karnataka higher education minister and....
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.... Congress leader said. CPI-M's interim coordinator Prakash Karat accused the Union government of subverting the rights of the states. "Never since independence, since the Constitution was adopted, has there been such a serious attack on the principal of federalism -- a basic feature of the Constitution. "Today, every aspect of federalism in our country, whether it is political, economic or fisc....
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....al -- the Centre is systematically undermining the federal principles enshrined in the Constitution," Karat said. He also claimed that a delimitation exercise proposed on the basis of population will create a severe imbalance in the southern states' political representation in Parliament and further vitiate federal principles. PTI AO RC<BR> News - Press release - PIB....