Pie in the sky: On the idea of simultaneous elections
The simultaneous elections idea is a non-starter
With the Union government introducing two Bills in the Lok Sabha to implement its idea of simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies, the stage is set for Parliament to debate the feasibility, or otherwise, of the idea of what the government calls “One Nation, One Election”. With the Opposition pressing on a division of votes on the introduction of the Bill — 263 for and 198 against — the writing on the wall was clear. The government does not have the two-thirds majority in Parliament to pass the constitutional amendments to facilitate simultaneous elections. A 39-member House panel will examine the two Bills. The content in the Bills themselves are in line with the recommendations of a committee headed by former President of India Ram Nath Kovind that envisaged simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections as a first step, followed by municipal and panchayat polls within 100 days of the general election. For the amendments to conduct municipal elections, they would have to be ratified by at least half of the State Assemblies.The Constitution Amendment Bill seeks to add a new provision that will provide for the timeline for simultaneous elections and as per the wording in the Bill, this could happen only in 2034 unless the Lok Sabha terms prior to that are curtailed for some reason. Other provisions echo the Kovind committee recommendations — for example, if a State Assembly gets dissolved before five years of its term, after the “appointed date” — the date for synchronising Lok Sabha and Assembly elections — fresh “midterm” elections will be held but the new Assembly will not have a full five-year tenure. Its tenure will end five years from the “appointed date”. The Bill also provides the Election Commission the option to defer or not hold Assembly elections to a particular State, but the full term of that Assembly will still coincide with that of the Lok Sabha elections. These provisions are anti-federal. The idea of conducting multiple elections to an Assembly before the stipulated five-year period also militates against the ostensible rationale provided for the idea of introducing simultaneous elections — cost-cutting. The idea of federalism, sharing power at different levels of governance, is tied to the exclusive importance and roles demarcated to them and elections are a way for voters to exercise their specific concerns related to these different levels of government. By subsuming the electoral cycles into one time frame, the idea of simultaneous elections has the potential to diminish the importance of each tier, which is also in line with the centralising tendencies of the BJP/NDA regime. This makes it imperative for those committed to federalism to steadfastly oppose this idea.