In a sharp and at times stinging critique of the ‘one nation, one election’ concept, which the Union Cabinet accepted and approved on Wednesday, one of India’s most highly regarded former law ministers and the current president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Kapil Sibal, has said “it could violate the basic structure of the constitution” because it undermines India’s federalism.
In a 23-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Sibal identified the main areas where one nation, one election could violate the Constitution. First, because it runs the risk of prioritising national issues over local issues, one nation one election could have a tendency of converting India’s federal structure into a unitary structure. In particular, if state and national elections are held together, issues of concern to small states like Goa, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh as well as Union territories like Pondicherry and even, possibly, Delhi, would get subsumed under the bigger national issues that will dominate the media and public attention.
Sibal also argued that one nation, one election contradicts the nature and character of India. We are not a nation of one religion, one language, one culture or one cuisine. We are a Union of states where the differences are actually a source of richness and pride. One nation, one election could seriously detract from that.
Sibal also felt that at a time when parliamentary elections are becoming increasingly presidential, there’s a danger that one nation, one election will exacerbate that trend and, therefore, it could push India’s multi-party system towards becoming some form of one-party state.
