Touted as ‘One Nation, One Election’, the idea of simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and state legislative assembly elections have resurfaced in public discourse several times in the last 10 years. It found a mention in the BJP’s election manifestos, 2014 and 2019. Recently, on September 2, the government constituted a high-level committee chaired by Ram Nath Kovind, the former President of India, to examine the feasibility of simultaneous elections in the country.
Curiously, the language of its notification, issued by the Legislative Department, Ministry of Law and Justice, under the signatures of the Law Secretary viz. Dr Reeta Vasistha reads binding in favour of the simultaneous elections rather than open-ended and exploratory. It says that “in the national interest it is desirable to have simultaneous elections in the country, the Government of India hereby constitutes a High Level Committee (hereinafter referred to as HLC) to examine the issue of simultaneous elections and make recommendations for holding simultaneous elections in the country”. It is thus a case of pre-judging the issue, which binds the hands of the HLC.
What if the HLC arrives at a different conclusion based on its deliberations and consultations? Should it not be allowed to have the freedom to make recommendations against the proposal, if necessary? The matter was previously examined by the department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice in its 79th Report titled ‘Feasibility of Holding Simultaneous Elections to the House of People (Lok Sabha) and State Legislative Assemblies’ (2015).
The notification omits reference to the draft report on simultaneous elections released by the 21st Law Commission of India (Chaired by Justice B.S. Chauhan) on August 30, 2018. The draft report, prepared in reference to the Parliamentary Standing Committee’s report (2015), was never finalised. The matter appears to have gone cold after the Law Commission was reconstituted. There was a close coincidence between the two reports as the department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee had already examined the issue in great detail. Simultaneously, the NITI Aayog came out with a discussion paper titled Analysis of Simultaneous Elections: The “What, “Why” and “How” authored by Bibek Debroy and Kishore Desai (April 2017) that was hosted on the website of the Department of Legal Affairs (Ministry of Law and Justice).
Thus the HLC serves no essential purpose, except allowing the government to temporise. With so many reports, but little follow-up, the matter has begun to sound like reinventing the wheel. With the HLC, the government has given a new twist to the idea of simultaneous elections that was previously only a part of the BJP’s Sankalp Patra (election manifesto), 2019. While in all previous reports, simultaneous elections implied synchronising Lok Sabha elections with elections to all (or most) state legislative assemblies, in the recent Legislative Department’s notification, elections to municipalities and Panchayats have also been included.
The anomaly is hard to miss. While the Lok Sabha and state legislative assembly elections are conducted by the Election Commission of India, the municipality and Panchayat elections are conducted by State Election Commissions in the respective states. They function under different constitutional provisions viz. Article 324 and Article 243K respectively, and are answerable to different legislatures. Even the electoral rolls are prepared separately as per the law.
In this entire debate on simultaneous elections, the Election Commission of India has been conspicuous by absence, though the government claims to have consulted its views (vide reply to unstarred question no 1226 dated March 10, 2017, in the Rajya Sabha). Simultaneous elections are not part of the Election Commission’s proposed electoral reforms pending before the Legislative Department, Ministry of Law and Justice, the administrative ministry for the Election Commission of India. There are dozens of more important and urgent electoral reform proposals crying for the attention of the government. Yet, for almost a decade, prior to the enactment of the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021, no significant electoral reforms have gone through. It will be a more sensible proposition to prioritise those well-considered reform proposals before the simultaneous elections.
II
Was there really a need to reinvent the wheel? The pity is that the government is already aware of the merits and challenges of simultaneous elections. This is evident from a reply given in Lok Sabha (Starred Question- 254) on March 17, 2023, by the then Minister of Law and Justice, Kiren Rijiju. On the plus side, the government has cited a) avoidance of replication of effort on the part of administrative and law & order machinery in holding repeated elections b) considerable savings to political parties and candidates in their election campaigns and c) avoidance of prolonged enforcement of Model Code of Conduct with its concomitant adverse effect on developmental and welfare programmes.
However, the challenges are also no less daunting. They are not merely about electoral management. They are essentially about the terms of the Houses (legislatures), which need to be curtailed or extended to synchronise the elections. The government has identified amendments in no less than five Articles of the Constitution viz. Article 83 relating to the duration of Houses of Parliament, Article 85 relating to the dissolution of Lok Sabha by the President, Article 172 relating to the duration of the state legislatures, Article 174 relating to the dissolution of the state legislatures and Article 356 relating to imposition to President’s rule in the states.
Obtaining the consensus of all political parties, and all state governments is also on the list. The most important logistical challenge pertains to procuring additional numbers of EVMs/VVPATs, which would cost thousands of crores. Considering the life of a machine is only 15 years, they would be used only three or four times in their lifespan before being discarded. This huge expenditure has to be borne on a repetitive basis after every 15 years. The government also counts additional polling personnel and security forces as another challenge area.
Today, there are more than one million polling stations in the country. In the last Lok Sabha elections (2019), more than 1.8 million Ballot units of EVMs, more than 1.3 million Control units, and 1.4 million VVPAT units were used. The EVM/VVPAT requirements would be doubled if one were to hold Lok Sabha and legislative assembly elections in all states simultaneously. The storage space requirement will shoot up similarly. This will no doubt require a huge expenditure.
The curtailment/extension of the term of the Houses, political controversies apart, will require a constitutional remedy. The Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice in its aforesaid 79th Report (2015) had recommended that legislative assembly elections be held in two phases- some synchronised with Lok Sabha elections, and other at midterm of the Lok Sabha (P.18). This will also moderate the one-time demand of the EVM/VVPATs.
However, the actions prescribed by the Parliamentary Standing Committee should have been initiated immediately. The Committee envisaged the proposed first phase of elections to be undertaken in November 2016 so that the next phase could be synchronised with the Lok Sabha elections, 2019 (P.18). The government, however, chose to sit over the report tabled in both Houses of Parliament on December 17, 2015. It took the government no less than two years to refer the matter to the 21st Law Commission, which never came out with its final report.
Appointing another committee, howsoever high-level, thus serves little purpose. To opt for simultaneous elections (or not) is a political decision that will require a political will. The government already knows its pros and cons. It will be a better strategy to appoint a Sherpa, a person with sound political credentials, to discuss the matter with all state governments and different political parties with a view to forge a consensus.
However, the selection of priority appears to be wrong in itself. Simultaneous elections can become a major headache for the national political parties if hung assemblies are formed in a number of states. It would mean firefighting on several fronts simultaneously, when political parties have only a few trusted troubleshooters and bridge-builders.
Non-synchronised elections are not without their benefits either. They allow the Election Commission of India to try out new initiatives before they are universalised during Lok Sabha elections. In fact, when for the first time, mid-term polls (1968-69) were held in India, the then Chief Election Commissioner S.P. Sen-Varma tried out a number of new innovations whose description he included in the ‘Report on the Mid-Term General Elections in India 1968-69 (1970)’. It was also for the first time that ECI issued a Minimum Code of Conduct on September 26, 1968. Subsequently, the EVM/VVPATs, postal voting from home for senior citizens in 80+ category/PWD voters, ETPBS (Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System) etc were all introduced during some Assembly elections or the other.
At present, on average, five to six states in India go in for elections. This has actually kept the election administration in a state of dynamism than it would have been if the elections were held once in five years. The asynchronous elections have also infused dynamism in the political parties. If elections were just a one-time affair in five years, the parties might lose touch with the electorate, once elections were over. This was how it was until the late 1960s, which gave rise to the idea that politicians show their faces once in five years.
III
The best way to approach electoral reforms is to deal with them comprehensively rather than selectively. An all-party meeting would be a good starting point. In this regard, Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s record is unsurpassed. He became the first and, till date, the only prime minister to preside over a meeting of representatives of political parties in Parliament on the theme of electoral reforms on January 9, 1990. This led to the formation of the Dinesh Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms (1990), still reckoned as a milestone in the annals of electoral reforms in India. It has a representation of major political parties and a former Chief Election Commissioner viz. S.L. Shakdher, who also had an impeccable record of Parliamentary service as Secretary-General, Lok Sabha Secretariat. The Modi government can take a leaf out of that collective enterprise. However, for simultaneous elections alone, a Sherpa will be more suitable than another committee.
The writer is author of the book “The Microphone Men: How Orators Created a Modern India” (2019) and an independent researcher based in New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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