President of AAP, Nagaland Unit and former MLA Asu Keyho has criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government in the Centre for appointing former president of India, Ram Nath Kovind to head a panel to explore the possibilities of ‘One Nation, One Election’ as announced on Friday.

“Any person who occupied the highest office of the world’s largest democracy and has retired from public life is not expected to become a committee member/ Chairman. Let me submit humbly, his dignity and sense of honour should not be ridiculed,” Keyho said in statement to the press. He opined that it would be a “mega embarrassment” for a former President to submit a report to the government and requested Kovind to refuse the offer.

Ram Nath Kovind served as the 14th president of India from 2017 to 2022.

The former legislator of Western Angami also stated that PM Modi’s “experiment with personal ambitions should be rejected,” adding that the NDA government’s announcements are “hardly democratic”.

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Commenting on the mission of the panel to study the feasibility of the country having simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly polls, Asu Keyho said that he stands by his party, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Delhi Minister Saurabh Bhardwaj, on Friday, said that the government headed by Modi was “scared of growing popularity and footprints of INDIA bloc” and that the establishment of the committee was a strategy “to deflect from the real issue of Hindenburg report 2.0.”

Asu Keyho also stated that he feels that PM wish to change the nation’s form of government from parliamentary democracy to a presidential form and become India’s ‘first President’, which he cautioned would not be taken well with enthusiasm.

Read more: Ex-president Kovind tasked to explore possibility of ‘One Nation, One Election’