One election, many notions

 

THE concept of ‘one nation, one election’, holding simultaneous voting for Lok Sabha and State Assemblies, has found a renewed vigour of debate and discussions after the adoption of the recommendations of the Kovind Committee by the Union Cabinet. A new pitch has been raised for the idea of ‘one nation, one election’ with support, praise and also opposition gathering in all parts of the country. The issue, though, cannot be confined only to narrow contours of a political divide. It is a massive transformation, if taken up, and also a complex one. Instead of making it a tool for making only political noise, the idea of simultaneous elections needs a deep look and constructive dialogue shaped by the best of democratic forms available. There is no denying the fact that running across landscapes, election to some or the other body is one constant in the country. The cycle goes on throughout the year bringing with it many checks on the work at hand.

 

It also results in a sweeping shift in the mindset of the contestants whose primary aim of gaining power pushes newer, and sometimes unrealistic, ideas of public welfare through freebies. It is indeed time for a constructive dialogue on the issue. The basic argument behind holding simultaneous elections across India is to save time and money for the country. Seen from the angle of effective management of the process, simultaneous elections can certainly reduce the cost of holding the exercise and limit all elections to a single season. The issue, now, cannot just remain a matter of debate for the experts and political scientists and needs a permanent mechanism for its introduction. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been a strong advocate of the formula since he assumed office in 2014 for the first term. In fact, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has always favoured simultaneous polls to remove every hindrance in developmental works coming via Model Code of Conduct. In 2003, late Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had taken up the matter with then Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Initially, she was receptive to the idea but did not pursue it seriously. During the ten-year Congress rule from 2004 to 2014, the matter hardly came up for political deliberations as the Congress put it on the backburner.

 

The circle of continuous elections must be brought to a halt as it affects stability and creates hurdles in economic development of the country. Besides taking a regular toll on the law and order situation, continuous elections also affect efficient governance. It ultimately hands over the governance to bureaucracy which is yet to warm up to the system of attending people’s grievances as its primary duty. The top benefit of holding all elections in one particular year is it can give five clear years to political parties to devote their time to good governance and development on all fronts. However, the federal set-up of India’s democracy often brings the issue of loss of confidence in the ruling dispensation. A no-confidence motion, if it succeeds, can make a government quit office and if no claimant manages to form the government then premature elections follow. This problem of premature elections needs a Constitutional review to help the idea of ‘one election’ succeed. The formula of ‘One nation, one election’ can be beneficial to the country only if there are stable elected bodies at various levels.

 

The problem of premature and frequent elections was dealt by the Law Commission of India in its 1999 report. It recommended an amendment on the lines of the German Constitution which allows the leader of the party who wants to replace the Chancellor to move no confidence motion along with the confidence motion. If both the motions succeed, the President appoints him as the Chancellor. The stakeholders can ponder on this suggestion to avoid premature dissolution of Lok Sabha. It also brings into focus a moral issue. If the people of India have to wait for five years to make their next electoral choice, why should the elected public representatives be given a chance to impose a premature, costly and exhausting exercise of elections on the country? Former Vice-Chairman of Law Commission Dr N M Ghatate, too, had advocated an amendment to Rule 198 in the Lok Sabha to avoid premature dissolution of Lok Sabha without diluting the cardinal principle of democracy i.e. government with the consent of the peoples’ representatives with periodical elections after five years.

 

‘One nation, one election’ is a big exercise needing integration of many processes. The High Level Committee headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind has given a detailed roadmap on how to translate the idea into reality by 2029. The panel studied the system of simultaneous elections in countries such as South Africa, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Indonesia and the Philippines. Now, the Indian ethos and public welfare, which is the core of democracy, must guide further shaping of this roadmap. The Government can easily filter out all politically-driven agendas of the Opposition parties but it must address the complexities of this vast country that is dotted by a delightful diversity and different weather patterns. n