What is one nation one election | Advantages and Disadvantages of one nation one elections

The idea of One Nation, One Election (ONOE) means conducting the Lok Sabha, all Vidhan Sabha, and all state assemblies (Vidhan Sabha) together, once in five years. This excludes elections of panchayats, state municipalities, and by-elections. The initiative will need a constitutional amendment that requires ratification by 50% of the states.

Prime Minister Modi is a major proponent of the ONOE concept, but it is not new: India has followed ONOE in the past, with elections in 1952, 1957, 1962, and 1967 based on the concept. The Law Commission Report (1999) by Justice BP Jeevan Reddy first brought this concept to Parliament, now considered in a discussion paper for NITI Aayog (2017) by Bibek Debroy and Kishore Desai.

These results have indicated two things: First, a dominant party at the center can bring momentum to the states, but it is not easy to maintain over a long period. Second, given the individual country dynamics, it is not easy for India to continue holding simultaneous elections. Forcing elections into synchronicity is not just a technical matter of adjusting legislative terms, but it involves curtailing the rights of the states.

Policy Paralysis

According to NITI Aayoga, a policy think tank under the Government of India, “In the last 30 years, there has not been a single year without an election to either a State Assembly or Lok Sabha or both.”

Under the Model Code of Conduct, the government is prohibited from announcing any new projects, development works, or political decisions until the elections are over. Defenders of the National Observatory Office assert that this paralyzes the state apparatus and causes what is known as “political paralysis.” 

Cost of elections vs. Cost of democracy

Holding simultaneous elections would not just ensure that the administrative machinery is allowed to participate in development activities, but will also benefit the government treasury and save millions of dollars in taxpayer money by reducing the burden required on security forces to conduct elections. It is estimated that ICE spent over Rs. 4000 Cr on 2019 elections.

As an ONOE supporter ex-CEC Qureishi notes, the scale of police forces will be staggering: “Unless there is the deployment of an adequate number of paramilitary forces, even simultaneous elections will have to be held within a period of 2 to 3 months. Which would defeat the purpose. About 800 secret forces are currently deployed in the elections. The government will have to provide at least 3,000 to 3,500 companies to ensure that the elections are held within no less than 30 days.

There are also questions about the feasibility of holding simultaneous elections. The fact that polling is now electronic means that double the number of Electronic Voting Machines would be needed. Although ECI in the 2019 elections showed that logistical challenges can be solved, the biggest problems raised by ONOE are conceptual and democratic challenges.

Federalism: The Ideology

Recurrent elections may be good in a democracy, as voters can ensure that their voices are heard more often. Representatives bear responsibility and must interact with voters more regularly during their term. Moreover, separate elections ensure that local and national issues are not confused, because if they are combined, local issues of greater importance run the risk of merging with more important national issues.

The underlying themes of national elections and state-level elections are different. While issues like farmer crises, unemployment, and national security can loom large during Lok Sabha elections, Assembly elections are usually won or lost on issues like law and order, electricity, and deaths because of encephalitis or flooding.

This principle is the core of federalism, which can be simply defined as a system of government in which several states form a unit but remain independent in their internal affairs. India has a quasi-federal structure, and the Constitution establishes this structure when it is called a “union of states,” ONOE, therefore, can be seen as undermining the country’s federal system.

The Legal Limitations

Article 83(2) deals with the tenure of Lok Sabha and says that it shall be for five years unless dissolved earlier. Article 172 stipulates that the term of state councils is five years unless they are dissolved before that. The responsibility of the legislature is described in Article 75(3) which reads as follows: “In a federal parliamentary democracy, the Cabinet of Ministers of the Central Government and the State Government shall be collectively accountable, respectively, to the House of Representatives and the people and the Legislative Assembly [Article 164 (2)]. 

However, state assemblies can only be dissolved for specific reasons consistent with Article 356 of the Constitution, and dissolving the assembly to hold simultaneous elections is considered a violation of the Constitution.

OFAC raises fundamental questions about governance: What would happen if the central government collapsed midterm? Will elections be held again in all states? Or would the President’s Rule be imposed? Creating an amendment to the Constitution for something of this magnitude would not only require taking many other positions and provisions into account, but it would also set a worrying precedent for further amendments to the Constitution.

Is this the first time the idea is being tried?

According to the article by Bibek Debroy and Kishore Desai for NITI Aayog, the concept is not new. After the adoption of the Constitution in 1950, elections to the Lok Sabha and all state assemblies were held simultaneously every five years between 1951 and 1967. However, when states or assemblies were formed or reorganized before their scheduled terms, this practice started being challenged.

Between 1952 and 1967, India was a largely unitary state, with the Congress overwhelmingly strong at both national and state levels. It was the rise of regional parties and their success in state polls that led to a policy that made simultaneous elections an ineffective system. The Law Commission had also recommended the idea in 1999, when the RSS-BJP gained prominence in the elections and leaders like LK Advani expressed their support.

One of the first indications of simultaneous elections not working was noticed in Kerala in 1959 when the CPI-lead government, one of the first democratically elected communist governments in the world, was dismissed and the president's rule was imposed. A special statewide election was called in 1960, and the resulting government was not dissolved in 1962 when national elections were held. This continued until 1964 when the President's government was imposed again. This continued until 1967, bringing Kerala back into sync with national elections, but the intense politics that followed showed that differences in state status always made it difficult to maintain simultaneous elections. By then, other states were challenging Congress's rule, and simultaneous elections were quietly abandoned.

When comparing the Congress government during the previous period of simultaneous elections with the current reality of the BJP, it is important to note that the political contexts are very different and there are many dynamics involved. However, they have one thing in common: momentum.

These graphs suggest that in the first three years (in states that saw simultaneous elections), the Congress had a near-perfect record at both the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha levels. But not in 1967, when simultaneous elections were held in 18/27 states: he failed to win four Lok Sabha states and concede in the Vidhan Sabha (Chart 2). Over these four years, its margin of victory, as represented by seat share kept reducing, and it fell more at the Vidhan Sabha level than at the Lok Sabha level (Charts 2 and 3).

Is there a political consensus on the issue?

The all-party meeting called to discuss the proposal was skipped by the heads of several political parties including the Congress (INC), Trinamool Congress (TMC), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam (DMK). ), while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) sent representatives to attend it.

Congress has outright rejected the proposal calling it a design of the saffron party to bring "one face, one name, and one ideology".

But other leaders such as Orissa CM and BJD leader Navin Patnaik have backed the idea.

Also Read: Want to make money from the stock market? Remember these 3 key rules