Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 15 (IANS) Slamming the union government for not holding the meetings of the Inter State Council since 2006, Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani Wednesday demanded implementation of the recommendations of the Sarkaria Commission.

“No meeting of the Inter State Council has been held since 2006. It is high time the council is convened to consider all the issues,” Advani wrote in his blog Wednesday.

Quoting the recommendations of the Sarkaria Commission constituted in 1983, Advani wrote: “It was easier to resolve differences or problems that arose between the union and the states at the party level, because the same party was in power in the union and the states.”

“Since 1967, parties or coalitions of parties other than the one running the government at the union, have been in power in several states.”

The BJP leader demanded “full and immediate implementation of the Sarkaria Commission’s recommendations on centre-state relations”.

“We shall engage with all political parties to highlight the issue and draw on mutual support. We shall stand up in solidarity with any non-congress state attacked or discriminated against,” Advani added.

He pointed out that it was also in the BJP’s declaration at the end of its national executive in Lucknow.

The three-member Sarkaria Commission, headed by retired justice Rajinder Singh Sarkaria, was set up in 1983 to look into centre-state relations and suggest changes within the constitution. Its report was submitted in 1988.

The other two members of the commission were B. Sivaraman and S.R. Sen.