One nation, One election

                                                                       (Photo: Think India)

“One nation, one
election”, might sound good as well as appealing, but it will have a
number of anti-democratic consequences. It’s true saying that simultaneous
elections for Lok Sabha and State Assembly could save time, energy and money of
our country, but on the other side it can prove to be harmful for our country
as well as democracy.

Apart from logical considerations, which cannot be a
serious reason for a major change to the basic structure of the Indian polity,
the most seductive argument in favor of simultaneous elections is the allure
of Modi’s phrase, “One nation, one election.” This matches the “one nation, one
tax” rationale for the goods and services tax (GST), which, of course, came
into force via its own constitutional amendment on 1 July, 2017.

While one can debate the economic costs and benefits
of GST, the analogy with elections is logically flawed. Indeed, the concept of
simultaneous elections fundamentally runs against the grin of our
Westminster-style federal political union. “One nation, one election” would
make sense if India were a unitary state. But we are a union of states, which
is philosophically and politically an essentially different conception of the
Indian nation-state. With this, let us discuss the disadvantages of holding
simultaneous elections in India:

• Rule by the majority is the cardinal principle of
  Indian democracy. The concept of simultaneous elections goes against this
  principle since if elections are held simultaneously then the Lok Sabha and the
  state legislative assemblies cannot be dissolved before completing their full
  period of 5 years even if the ruling party is reduced to a minority hence it
  will go against the federal principles.
•  It will disown
  today's reality of fragmented quality at the state level where coalitions are
  the order of the day. So, simultaneous elections try to bring in the presidential
  type of governance where the state assembly is no longer can decide their own
  path and have to be in existence for 5 years with a minority party in power.
• Even if elections were to take place simultaneously, parties contesting
  in only one state would anyway be similarly burdened. So, it probably takes
  care of only national parties. And the logistic requirement of movement of the
  requisite security forces. This constant would remain even if simultaneous
  elections were held.

So, it can be said
that holding simultaneous elections is certainly desirable but not feasible.
The question which arises is, "Why should the states suffer from the
electoral decisions taken at the centre?" It has been said that
simultaneous elections would curtail government expenditure but the election
commission has updated that for this it would require the procurement of 24
lakh EVMs and an equal number of VVPAT units which is double the number
required to hold only parliamentary polls. So, the first objective is not met.

Therefore,
notwithstanding the benefits of simultaneous elections highlighted above, the
cost to the Indian democracy in terms of playing havoc with the cardinal
principle of rule by the majority will be far more than any savings to be
realized to the public exchequer. Rather other alternatives should be explored
to reduce election-related expenses like state funding of elections,
decriminalization of politics, bringing in transparency in political funding by
linking Aadhaar card to the election Identity card which has still not been
done, etc.