The question of holding simultaneous elections necessitates dispassionate and non-partisan perspectives.
No doubt any discussion related to the electoral system is political and is bound to have motives to serve the interests of individuals and/or political parties. To brand the contentions as suspect (which they actually may be) and summarily dismiss them will be naïve.
It is, therefore, justifiably called for to examine with a historical perspective, the functionality and fairness entailed in holding simultaneous elections.
The motive attributed, inter alia, is that the Bharatiya Janata Party is using this as a diversionary tactics.
To overcome the burden of anti-incumbency, the ongoing and upcoming elections in the states of Haryana, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand – which had been held simultaneously earlier – have now been phased. This only reinforces the contention that the main purpose of political parties is to win elections. And, it does not matter whether these are held simultaneously or in a phased manner. This adds to the notion that the ‘one election’ call is diversionary and, thus, has us relating contentious issues like federalism, secularism and institutional collapse with the proposal for holding simultaneous elections.
At the same time, the BJP’s projection of ‘one nation one election’ appears to be in sync with their ideological predispositions of nurturing majoritarian cultural nationalism rather than political expediency.
Sanjay Kumar of Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, as well as the Association for Democratic Reforms, have argued on the basis of data that, out of 31 instances of holding simultaneous elections, in 24 the major political parties polled almost a similar proportion of the votes both for the assembly and the Lok Sabha.
The inferential logic is that simultaneous elections would undermine the federal democratic structure and push regional political parties on the margins. This is a statistical overreach. Further, it has been argued that the percentage share of the votes of national political parties in parliamentary elections is on the decline. Their share of votes was around 76% in 1951, which declined to 68.70% in the 2019 parliamentary elections. And the share of the regional parties increased from 8% to 23% during the same period. Was that because there were no simultaneous elections? That would be a spurious corelation.
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It is therefore, deduced that the simultaneous elections shall benefit the national political parties, mainly the BJP. But the question arises as to why simultaneous elections if they are going to favour the national parties, won’t benefit the Congress. Does that imply that the Congress has ceased to be national? These arguments are influenced by narrow partisan viewpoints.
Further, to attribute the functioning of democracy, federalism, and citizens’ welfarism to the timings of elections is to divert the people attention from number of factors like non-performance of the political parties in power, the credibility crisis of the leaders and the non-fulfilment of the promises, and also fault-lines of caste, religion, and ethnicity.
It should not be forgotten that till the mid-1960s, national and state elections were held together. It was the frequent imposition of Article 356 that led to dissolution of state assemblies, which resulted in multiple elections. It was not simultaneous elections that violated the federal system, but the use of Article 356 by the Union government which compromised functional federalism.
On the contrary, the inferential deduction of this view would be that till the mid-1960s, due to simultaneous elections, federalism was hurt, regional aspirations were curtailed, and secularism was sacrificed. This is also a reductionist view of the worst kind.
It is strange to say that simultaneous elections shall subvert democracy, federalism and regional aspirations, as if to be perennially in election mode is healthier for fair choice, socio-economic development and enhanced possibility of fulfilling the ‘false’ promises made during elections.
Every year, nearly four to five states go to the polls. The development and welfare programmes of the Union government and poll-bound state governments are put on hold with the imposition of the model code of conduct for months. Poll time also disrupts the normalisation of the ethnic, caste, and religious divisions as these fault-lines are continuously invoked. Another important factor other than development and governance disruption, besides material costs, is a new trend of election by television and social media. The cycle of continuous elections broadcast throughout the country creates an environment of electoral rhetoric and promises for immediate electoral gains rather than the pursuit of a sustainable welfare agenda for the peasantry, unemployed youth, Dalits, backwards people, women and other vulnerable sections of the society.
Is this achievable?
The idea of holding simultaneous elections is not recent or in response to the political design of any particular political party. It was first floated in the year 1983 by the Election Commission of India. A number of reasons were advanced, ranging from accelerating development work, reduction in expenditure on holding of elections and so on.
Thereafter, in the 170th Report of the Law Commission of India in 1999, and the Parliamentary Standing Committee in 2015, it was proposed that the elections could be held in two clusters as per the Representation of People Act, 1951, which allows the Election Commission of India to notify general elections six months prior to the end of the terms of the existing Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
Similarly, in 2018, the Law Commission of India prepared a draft report. It put forward three options:
(a) advancing or postponing elections to state assemblies and Lok Sabha so that elections may be held together;
(b) elections can be held in two clusters, i.e. in 13 states along with the Lok Sabha in 2019 and in 16 states in 2021; or
(c) all elections falling in one calendar year could be conducted together being conducive to all the state assemblies and Lok Sabha.
In 2022, the 22nd Law Commission of India further reinforced the idea floated by the earlier Commissions. To sum up, the feasibility of holding simultaneous elections is conditional and its desirability debatable. Also, how far these would be in convergence with democratic principles, federalism, and the basic structure of the constitution remain moot points. No doubt, it is relevant to check the distortions as described above, by finding answers in electoral management rather than amending the constitution for holding simultaneous elections.
It would be appropriate to restrict the continuous electoral cycle adopted by the Election Commission of India by taking pro-active initiative to form electoral clusters of the states with or without making it coterminous with the Lok Sabha elections, and that might not require any amendments in the constitution and changes in the People’s Representation Act. It should be understood that electoral management is no substitute for electoral reforms like the quality of candidates, excessive expenditure, trivialisation of electoral promises, absence of real issues, leaders’ disconnect with the people, and so on. These have nothing to do with the timing of elections.
Further, to have fixed terms of the assemblies and Lok Sabha or after their premature dissolution, the re-elections to be held for the remaining period have to be addressed by amending the existing constitutional and statutory acts. And, for achieving that, political consensus is needed, which may not be easily forthcoming.
Dr. Pramod Kumar is a Chandigarh-based political analyst.
