New Delhi: Even as the Congress boycotted the all-party meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss simultaneous polls, party leader Milind Deora on Wednesday supported the idea of holding simultaneous polls in the country and called for a debate on the issue.

The Congress leader reasoned that being in continuous election mode is a roadblock to good governance and distracts politicians from addressing real issues.

Mr Deora, who is the Mumbai Congress chief, termed “One Nation, One Election” as an “important and valuable reform”, and said that the government should decide on it by taking all political parties on board and seeking opinions of the intelligentsia as well as organisations working on electoral reforms and students.

“It is unfortunate that India’s political class, which I am a part of, is fast forgetting the art of debate, discussion and engagement. This, in my opinion, is a grave threat to India’s democratic nature,” Mr Deora said in a statement.

The Congress leader went on to say that he was yet to come across any evidence, which suggests that if elections to the state assemblies are held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls, it will help the party that is in power nationally.

“Only recently, along with the Lok Sabha elections, the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh elected members to their respective Vidhan Sabhas. Two out of the three states elected parties that are not even in an alliance with the BJP,” he said.