Simultaneous polls doable in India

Democracy is about continuous reflection and interrogation, but the perpetual cycle of elections is making India an elections-only democracy, over an electoral democracy. The Indian polity is continuously in an election mode. Within a normal tenure of Lok Sabha, the country experiences an average of 5 to 7 state assembly elections every year.

In addition, there are elections of the government’s third tier and by-elections at some or the other time of any year. Frequent polls force the governments to change the focus of policy making. Short-sighted populist and “politically safe” measures are given higher priority too, over “difficult” and long-term structural reforms.

To negate this, many experts in the policy sphere and even some politicians have been consistently voicing their support for the idea of simultaneous polls. This has been a topic of discussion at various levels, from the offices of the President and the Prime Minister to a common man.

The concept of simultaneous polls is nothing new and existed in India in post adoption of the constitution during the period 1951-1967. Essentially, simultaneous elections structure the Indian poll cycle in a way that synchronises the Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections. The elections for third-tier institutions can be organised at other convenient timings.

Simultaneous polls help us resolve the problem of frequent imposition of Moral Code of Conduct (MCC) which leads to large suspensions of developmental projects, welfare schemes and capital projects until the polls. Perpetual elections also result in use of security forces and other government officials for prolonged periods of time.

Frequent polls also lead to massive expenditures of governments, political parties and candidates, making it one of the root causes of corruption and black money. Simultaneous polls could open up possibilities to address such systemic problems. It could help save thousands of crores for all the stakeholders.

But when there are so many benefits of simultaneous elections, it is a surprise that there hasn’t been a consensus across the political sphere yet, the reason being that the advantages of simultaneous elections don’t go uncontested. There are a lot of practical issues, which have to be worked out. Critics have argued that holding simultaneous elections would influence the voter behavior in a way that voters would end up voting on national issues even for state elections.

This may result in marginalising the regional parties which usually represent the interests of local people. A study carried out by IDFC institute, which analysed electoral data for four rounds of Lok Sabha elections in 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014, shows that in several cases parties won the same per cent of assembly constituencies both when the elections were held simultaneously.

Critics conclude that simultaneous elections would benefit larger national parties at the cost of state/regional parties in case of a “national wave in favor of large national parties.” But contradictory examples like in the case of Odisha in 2014, show that the BJD increased its vote share from 37.23% in 2009 Lok Sabha elections to 44.77% in 2014 despite the larger national trend in favor of the BJP-led NDA.

Such cases clearly show that the argument that simultaneous polls would favor larger national parties is a weak conclusion at best and it would mean undermining the capabilities of Indian voters in general.

The most important issue with simultaneous polls is the operational feasibility and doability. Solutions are needed to work on ways to synchronise the terms of Assemblies/Lok Sabha for the first time and sustain it through no-confidence motions and dissolutions.

A two-phase approach of organising the elections of the Lok Sabha and all the State Assemblies would be feasible. Phase 1 would be with the general Lok Sabha election and phase 2 would be around the middle of the term of the Lok Sabha.

For instance, if the simultaneous elections are assumed to be conducted from 2019, the elections for Lok Sabha and for 14 State Assemblies will be held in the period of March-May 2019 and for the remaining state assemblies, elections will be held in the period of October-December 2021.

This method is suggested because holding simultaneous elections for all State Assemblies at once would require some state governments to curtail or extend their tenures for more than 2 years which is clearly undesirable, whereas in the suggested solution, it would not be more than 13 months. The proposed solution would also work better in case of dissolution of central or state governments in between.

As the constitutional provisions do not fix the terms of Lok Sabha or State Assemblies, there is a high possibility that the electoral cycle is disturbed again. In such cases, the constitutional provisions should be amended to allow for extension or curtailment of tenures to a small period of time.

Let's say, if the government dissolves in the first 15 months’ post Phase 1 elections in 2019, immediate elections will be held but the term of the new government will last less than 60 months until the next phase 1 elections in 2024.

If the government dissolves after 15 months of phase-1 elections, the provisions should be amended such that they allow Presidential/Governor’s rule till the second phase of elections in 2021. In contrary to ideal simultaneous polls, the two phase makes the political parties to go to the people, at least twice in five years thus making them more accountable.

To avoid premature dissolutions of the government, we can adopt a model similar to the ones followed by the Germans, where in, a no- confidence motion against the government in office would require to be followed by a confidence motion. Only with the passage of the confidence motion, the government would be dissolved.

Simultaneous elections definitely seem feasible. But it needs a wide range of discussion and consensus across political parties, strong political will and public support to turn into reality. India needs such transformative measures to achieve rapid growth. (Author is a BJP Official State Spokesperson, Telangana)

By A Rakesh Reddy