Election Commission Doing PR Work for ‘One Nation One Poll’

With the CEC saying that it ready for implementing Modi's favourite idea, opposition is skeptical about practicality of the idea, writes K RAVEENDRAN.

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With Prime Minister Narendra Modi pitching more loudly in favour of his idea of 'one nation one poll', the Election Commission seems to have started a process of federating the idea further. 

The Chief Election Commissioner said in an interview that the commission is 'ready for one nation one poll', provided the due legislative process is completed. Of late, commission officials have been giving interviews to various media units and indicating a gradual shift in approach to single poll, even as Modi announced the move to constitute a committee to work out time-bound proposals to implement the idea.

Modi has been maintaining that frequent elections have been deterring developmental progress, as the code of conduct relating to elections prevents policy decisions from being taken during and ahead of elections. He laments that every few months there is an election in some part of the country, which has its obvious fall-out on the administration. He has also favoured a single voter list for all polls for better efficiency and optimisation of costs.

The Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, under Dr Sudarsana Natchiappan, had in its report in 2015 on the feasibility of holding simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies had cited huge cost savings as the primary justification for this concept. 

The committee noted that holding simultaneous elections would reduce the massive expenditure that is currently incurred for the conduct of separate elections and help avoid the policy paralysis that results from the imposition of the Model Code of Conduct during election time. It also highlighted the scope for reducing the impact on delivery of essential services and the burden on crucial manpower that is deployed during election time.

Perhaps the most compulsive argument in favour of unified poll is the increasing rarity of life of legislative house, whether Lok Sabha or state assemblies, being curtailed due to loss of majority or any other reason. 

In the record up to 2015, when the report was submitted, out of the 16 Lok Sabha that had been constituted until then, seven were dissolved pre-maturely due to coalition governments. However, lately, the legislatures have been completing their full term.

The anti-defection law and the powers of the President or head of state to proclaim emergency or dissolve the house, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, which said a state assembly cannot be dissolved without the concurrence of parliament, have also reduced the instances of the life of houses being prematurely ended, necessitating out of turn elections.

The effectiveness of anti-defection law to prevent situations where the ruling party, whether in parliament or states, lose majority and, therefore, the right to rule, has of late been completely disproved. 

There is no dearth of instances when governments particularly in states, which appeared quite stable and well-established, have overnight been reduced to minority. And this has happened more frequently in recent times under the saffron dispensation.

But these manipulations have only led to change of governments rather than dissolution of assemblies. We have the experiences of Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, where wholesale switching of loyalties has taken place, but without the life of the legislative houses being affected. It is a different matter that this maybe more due to the reluctance by members to forego their privileges and pensions rather than the effectiveness of the anti-defection law.

The implementation of 'one nation one poll' would obviously require major amendments to the laws, but also synchronisation adjustments in the interregnum so that elections will become due in all states simultaneously. 

The Law Commission, which studied the issue, had suggested that elections of legislative assemblies whose term ends six months after the general elections to Lok Sabha can be clubbed together, but with a rider that the results of such elections be declared at the end of the assembly's tenure. The Representation of People Act, 1951 permits the Election Commission to notify general elections six months prior to the end of the terms of Lok Sabha and state assemblies.

The Natchiappan Committee recommended that in order to hold early elections to Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies, one of two conditions must be met. Either a motion for an early general election must be agreed to by at least two-thirds of all members of the House; or a no confidence motion must be passed by the house, and with no alternative government being confirmed within 14 days of passing a confidence motion. It also recommended that elections could be held in two phases, with some assemblies going to polls mid-term of Lok Sabha and elections to the remaining to be held at the end of Lok Sabha's term.

Modi government functionaries have claimed increasing support from political parties for the concept, but the left parties are known to have serious reservations about it. There is a lurking fear that simultaneous elections will favour the single dominant national party and as such go against regional parties. (IPA)

(K Raveendran is a senior journalist. Views are personal.)