PM pitches for debate on simultaneous polls at Niti Aayog council meet

New Delhi: Stating that India has no shortage of capabilities, capacities and resources, and with the Indian economy having grown at a healthy rate of 7.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017-18, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a meeting of CMs here on Sunday that much more needs to be done to achieve double-digit GDP growth.

Speaking at the fourth meeting of the Niti Aayog’s governing council, Mr Modi said the “challenge now is to take this growth rate to double digits, for which many more steps have to be taken”. The PMO in a statement said that the world expects India to become a $5 trillion economy soon.

Mr Modi said states would receive over Rs 11 lakh crore from the Centre — a hike of about Rs 6 lakh crore from the last year of the previous government.

While the CMs of Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi did not attend the meeting, 23 other CMs and one lieutenant-governor were present.

Keeping in view the resulting financial savings and consequent better utilisation of resour-ces, Mr Modi called for a widespread debate on holding simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and Assemblies.

Later, briefing report-ers, Niti Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar said the PM had suggested that there could be one uniform voters’ list for all elections.