One Nation One Election whether practical or not

We often hear of any ongoing or upcoming elections in any part of our country. But what comes to your mind if you hear of the recently proposed One Nation One Election? Aren’t you curious? Does it mean the ending of the decentralised system with the centre-oriented one or something else? Is it going to strengthen the democratic system of our country or going to weaken it? Now, here we are going to discuss almost everything about it

Meaning of Election-

As per Section 2(d) of the Representation of People Act, 1951 election means an election to fill a seat or seats in either House of Parliament or in the House or either House of the Legislature of a State.

Justice Fajal Ali, while sitting on a Constitution bench in the case of N.P.Ponnuswamy v. Returning Officer, Namakkal Constituency [AIR 1952 SC 64 : (1951-52) 1 ELR 133] expressed that-

“It seems to me that the word ‘election’ has been used in Part XV of the Constitution in the wide sense, that is to say, to connote the entire procedure to be gone through to return a candidate to the Legislature. The use of the expression “conduct of elections” in Article 324 specifically points to the wide meaning and that meaning can also be read consistently into the other provisions which occur in Part XV including Article 329(b). That the word ‘election’ bears this wide meaning whenever we talk of elections in a democratic country, is borne out by the fact that in most of the books on the subject and in several cases dealing with the matter, one of the questions mooted is, when the election begins. The subject is dealt with quite concisely in Halsbury’s Law of England in the following passage under the heading “Government of England”.

Article 324, Constitution of India- Superintendence, direction and control of elections to be vested in an Election Commission.

Article 329, Constitution of India- Bar to interference by courts in electoral matters.

History of Election in India-

Franchise Committee Report, 1932-

The Franchise Committee was constituted in December 1931. It was recommendation of the Franchise Sub-Committee of the Indian Round Table Conference. The Marquess of Lothian, C.H., Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for India was the Chairman of the Committee. The committee also consisted of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar, C.Y.Chintamani, A.Ramaswamy Mudaliar, Muhammad Yakub and Zulfikar Ali Khan. T. C. S. JAYARATNAM and J. G. LAITHWAITE were the Secretary to the Committee.

Recommendations-

1. The Committee believed that a complete Adult Franchise is Impracticable in India.
2. The Committee recommends that the franchise in all the provinces be based on property and education.
3. The Committee recommended a separate electoral roll for the depressed class in proportion to their population. Here, the term Depressed Classes should be applied to only those known as untouchables, as per the committee report.
4. The Committee didn’t decide on the question of a bicameral legislature. It opined that the question of whether the provincial legislatures of the future should be bicameral is a constitutional issue that is beyond the scope of the Committee’s terms of reference. Until these issues are settled it would be useless to frame detailed schemes for the franchise or the composition of the second chambers, if any, which are to be set up in the different provinces.
5. The Committee agreed with the Federal Structure Committee in recommending that the members of the Senate should be elected by the provincial legislatures by the system of the single transferable vote.
6. The committee recommended that the franchise for the Assembly should be the same as for the provincial councils. It was done so because it involved the preparation of one electoral roll.

In post-independence India in the year 1951-52, the First election cycle for the election of seats of the House of People and Assemblies of States simultaneously, was initiated. This practice remained till 1967. Thereafter for the reason of the dissolution of the Legislative Assemblies of various States broke the practice of simultaneous election.

In December 1970 the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi got the Lok Sabha dissolved. Afterwards, the general elections were rescheduled 15 months ahead of 1971. At that time Mrs. Gandhi was leading a minority government which she was not happy with. Thereafter, the elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies could not be held simultaneously. At present the election to the seats of Parliament and State Assemblies are held on the expiry of their respective tenure or their dissolution, as the case may be.

Report on the Second General Elections in India, 1957-

The first General Elections in Independent India were held between October 1951 and May 1952. In this election, the President, Vice-President, and members of the Lower House at the Centre and in the States and the members of the Upper House were elected. The second General Elections to the House of People and the State Legislative Assemblies were completed by March 1957. For conducting simultaneous elections for the House of People and State Legislative Assemblies, the dissolution of State Assemblies was necessitated to synchronise their terms with the election to the House of People. The Report on the Second General Elections in India, 1957 states:

“If the House of the People and the different State Legislative Assemblies were all allowed to complete their respective terms in full, the General elections to reconstitute them would have had to be held at different points of time. In such a case, it would not have been possible to hold simultaneous country-wide general elections, both for the House of the People and the State Legislative Assemblies…. It was therefore, decided that the second general elections should be completed before the end of March, 1957, and that the existing Houses of Legislature should be dissolved prematurely, whenever necessary, in order that the newly elected Houses might meet soon after the general elections were over.”

As a consequence of this decision, the Legislative Assemblies of Bihar, Bombay, Madras, West Bengal, Mysore, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh were dissolved before the expiration of their term. To dissolve the Houses, a consensual approach in consultation with all political parties, the Central Government and the State Governments was adopted by the Election Commission of India.

With time, the concurrent nature of elections was lost. This was because the tenure of the House of the People and the State Legislative Assemblies was not for a fixed length of time but a maximum duration of five years. Consequently, the elected bodies could be dissolved before the expiry of their maximum duration of five years. As elected bodies were dissolved before the expiry of five years, elections to those elected bodies became asynchronous. This began to cast a burden on the voters, political parties and their leaders, and the election authorities in terms of time, energy and money. This malady caught the attention of political parties and their leaders, media, election authorities, government and the citizens.

170^th Report of Law Commission-

In its 170^th Report in the year 1999, the Law Commission of India pointed out that the practice of holding simultaneous elections for the House of the People and State Legislative Assemblies, which was prevalent before 1967, faced disruptions due to various factors. These included the frequent application of Article 356 of the Constitution (Provisions in case of failure of constitutional machinery in the State) and the dissolution of State Legislative Assemblies by the Governor based on the Chief Minister’s recommendation, among others. The commission acknowledged that while it was true that not all situations leading to the invocation of Article 356 could be predicted entirely (especially considering the reduced scope after the Supreme Court’s decision in S.R. Bommai v. Union of India), the norm should be simultaneous elections. The Commission suggested that holding separate elections for State Legislative Assemblies should be an exception rather than the rule. According to the Commission, the general rule should be to conduct elections once every five years for the House of the People and all State Legislative Assemblies. The Law Commission Report (Draft), 2018, again underlined the importance and benefits of simultaneous elections. It observed that by no stretch of the imagination would the holding of simultaneous elections adversely interfere with the basic structure of the Constitution.

In 2002, the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution recognised the need for the restoration of simultaneous elections. Again the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice thoroughly studied the issues involved in holding elections in 2015 and recommended that simultaneous elections will be necessary to enable India to move on to the path of high economic development. The Committee, in its report on the ‘Feasibility of holding simultaneous elections to the House of the People (Lok Sabha) and State Legislative Assemblies,’ acknowledged several reasons supporting the idea of conducting elections simultaneously.

In January 2017, NITI Aayog formulated a working paper titled “Analysis of Simultaneous Elections: The What, Why and How,”. It was to explore the prospect of holding simultaneous elections for the House of the People and State Legislative Assemblies. The document examined the Constitutional provisions and the financial and logistical considerations associated with simultaneous elections and formulated a framework for the implementation of such synchronized electoral processes. The report undertook an elaborate analysis and suggested the shift to simultaneous elections like in the initial decades. In 2019, an all-party meeting was held in Delhi, which was attended by 19 political parties to discuss critical reforms in governance. One of the subjects of discussion was the simultaneous elections. Out of 19 political parties 16 favoured the holding of simultaneous elections with only 3 political parties opposing it.

International Law on Election-

International Law also recognises the need for participation by citizens of a state in the election process. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 (UDHR) also advocates the process of election.

Meaning of one nation one election-

The phrase one nation one election means that the election of the centre and states will be held altogether i.e. simultaneously. It can simply be said that the elections of Parliament and State Legislatures are to be held together. There shall be only one election throughout the country.

Kovind Committee on Simultaneous Elections-

On the 23rd of September 2023, a High-Level Committee on Simultaneous Elections (One Nation One Election) was constituted. The committee was constituted through a Gazette notification dated 02.09.2024 by the Government of India. After its constitution, the committee worked for 191 days. The members of the committee consisted of very distinguished eminent persons from diverse backgrounds with specialisation and long experience in law, political science, administration, public finance and economics. The Committee was headed by Former President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind as its Chairman. Amit Shah, Ghulam Nabi Azad, N.K.Singh, Subhash C. Kashyap, Harish Salve, and Sanjay Kothari, were its members, Arjun Ram Maghwal was the Special invitee and Niten Chandra was the Secretary to this Committee.

Inviting of Suggestions-

The committee also invited suggestions and comments from the public, registered political parties, Former Chief Justices of India, Former Chief Justices of High Courts, Former Chief Election Commissioners of India and State Election Commissioners. The committee received responses from 47 political parties out of which 15 political parties were barred. The remaining 32 political parties favoured simultaneous elections. The favouring political parties also advocated its adoption for saving scarce resources, protecting social harmony and stimulating economic development. Numerous Advocates also gave their comments. Those who opposed raised apprehension believed that it may violate the principle of the basic structure of the Constitution, be anti-democratic and ant-federal, encourage the dominance of national parties and result in a presidential form of government.

The committee found that mostly the electoral rolls are prepared by the State Election Commissions after taking them from the Chief Election Commissioner. This process causes errors in the list. The committee recognises the significance of a Single Electoral Roll and a Single Elector’s Photo Identity Card (EPIC) for elections to all three tiers of government. Therefore, to harmonise the actions of the two Constitutional bodies (Election Commission of India and State Election Commission) Article 325 of the Constitution needs to be amended.

Simultaneous Elections in other countries-

The committee felt the need for a comparative analysis of other countries while dealing with the issue of simultaneous elections. The aim was to study and adopt the best international practices to ensure fairness and transparency in elections. South Africa, Sweden, Belgium, Philippines, Germany, and Indonesia have arrangements for simultaneous elections. The committee deeply analysed the practice of election in these countries.

Recommendations of the High-Level Committee-

1. For simultaneous elections Articles 82A, 83(2), 83(3), 83(4), 172(3), 172(4), 172(5) and 327 needs to be amended/inserted. The amendment to these Articles does not require ratification by half of the states. In addition to the aforementioned Articles of the Constitution, Articles 324A, 325, 368(2) need to be amended/inserted.
2. The Government must develop a legally tenable mechanism to restore the cycle of simultaneous elections.
3. In the first step, simultaneous elections to the House of the People and the State Legislative Assemblies should be held.
4. In the second step, the elections to Municipalities and Panchayats will be synchronized with the House of the People and State Legislative Assemblies in such a way that elections to Municipalities and Panchayats are held within a hundred days of the holding of elections of the House of the People and the State Legislative Assemblies.
5. The tenure of all State Legislative Assemblies constituted by-elections to the State Legislative Assemblies after the Appointed date and before the expiry of the full term of the House of the People, shall be only for the period ending up to the subsequent General elections to the House of the People. Thereafter, all General elections to the House of the People and all State Legislative Assemblies shall be held together simultaneously.
6. In the event of a hung House, no-confidence motion, or any such event, fresh elections may be held to constitute the new House. Where fresh elections are held for the House of the People, the tenure of the House of the People will be only for the unexpired term of the immediately preceding full term of the House of the People and the expiration of this period shall operate as a dissolution of the House.

The recommendations of the Committee depict a rationale embedded in the principles laid down by the Supreme Court of India in Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, 1973,

“Every Constitution is expected to endure for a long time. Therefore, it must necessarily be elastic. It is not possible to place the society in a straitjacket. The society grows, its requirements change. The Constitution and the laws may have to be changed to suit those needs. No single generation can bind the course of the generation to come. Hence every Constitution, wisely drawn up, provides for its own amendment”

Benefits and Concerns of Simultaneous Elections-

Benefits-

1. Every year there are elections to at least 3-4 States that remain in line, the political parties and Ministers are most of the time in the political rallies and election campaigns. The simultaneous election will remove the hindrance in policy making and governance.
2. The enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct repeatedly acts as a barrier to the development process and government schemes. By simultaneous elections, development projects and government schemes will not be impacted often.
3. There is the deployment of police personnel election officers and staff on election duty every election. This impacts their official work which could be saved in Simultaneous Election.
4. Simultaneous elections will save time and expenditure incurred in multiple elections on troop deployment, security arrangements and election duties.
5. This will increase the voting percentage, of voters living away from their place of voting. In sequential elections, the voters residing away from their place of voting had to go for voting to their places of voting to cast their vote. Therefore, they had to choose between elections in which they should go to cast their vote. In simultaneous elections, they can vote in one go.

Concerns-

1. Simultaneous elections will have organisational challenges in a large country like India. If there would not be proper careful planning it would be disastrous.
2. The election to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies have different political and social issues and needs are different. Regional issues will be overshadowed by the national issues.
3. The critics also say that it is against democratic principles.
4. It is supposed to be disadvantageous for regional political parties because in most cases the political party at the centre keeps an advantage. It will decrease the accountability of politicians. Multiple elections enhance the accountability of politicians.

The proposed concept of simultaneous election will surely favour the largest democracy in the world i.e. India. It is going to strengthen our democracy multi-dimensionally. The reasoning behind saying these things is that the High-Level Committee received 21,500 suggestions/responses from the public, out of these about 80% were in favour of the simultaneous elections. The responses came from all corners of the country, including Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar, Nagaland, Dadra, and Nagar Haveli. The highest responses were received from the States of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Uttar Pradesh. Due to the ongoing cycle of elections in various parts of the country, political parties, their leaders, legislators, and both State and Central Governments often focus on preparing for upcoming elections rather than governance. Simultaneous elections would refocus the government’s attention towards developmental activities and the implementation of policies aimed at promoting the welfare of the people.

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