One nation, one election; one of the most discussed topics of the year got a thumbs up from the cabinet’s side on the eve of a special discussion on the constitution in parliament on Thursday. The cabinet set in motion the process to implement simultaneous elections by approving two bills, which will be checked on the floor of Lok Sabha next week.
If the bills that are cleared by the cabinet are passed by the parliament without any changes, the earliest simultaneous elections can be held only in 2034, as per government sources. Let us one by one understand this new bill and its credentials and why it has been a golden agenda of the BJP.
The Two bills:
The two bills that are set to be tabled as early as Friday or Monday of this winter session, which is in session from 25th November till 20th December, are:
- A constitutional amendment bill to enable joint elections of the Lok Sabha and state assemblies and
- An ordinary bill to align Assembly elections in the Union territories of Delhi, Puducherry, and Jammu & Kashmir.
The two, after being introduced in the parliament, can then be referred to a joint parliamentary committee for more consultation and scrutiny. The bills have been drafted as per the recommendation of the high-level committee chaired by former President of India Ram Nath Kovind.
The Ram Nath Kovind Report:
The report of the high-level committee for One Nation, One Election, which was submitted in March this year, just before the announcement of Lok Sabha elections to President Draupadi Murmu, was accepted by the Union Cabinet this September. The panel said in the report that simultaneous elections could ‘transform the electoral process.’
According to the panel: –
- Simultaneous elections will be held for the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies.
- Elections to the municipalities and the panchayats will be synchronized with the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies in such a way that municipal and panchayat elections are held within a hundred days of holding Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
The panel also proposed the insertion of two new provisions, i.e., Article 82A (1) and Article 82A (2).
The former states that the president will notify the “appointed date” on the first sitting of the Lok Sabha after a general election, and the latter says that the terms of the State Assemblies elected after the “appointed date” would be curtailed ahead of its time, or in case of defections or a hung election, to align with the end of the full term of the Lok Sabha.
According to government sources, this would mean that if the bills are passed without any further changes, the appointed date would only be notified during the first sitting of the Lok Sabha that is elected in 2029 because the first sitting of the 2024 Lok Sabha has already been passed.
Has it happened before?
The first four general elections held in India involved simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies. Congress was in power at both the national and state levels then. But it was only possible until the 4th general election in 1967.
After 1967, the elections were held separately due to the advancing of Lok Sabha polls by the Congress. At present, the Lok Sabha elections coincide with four state assembly elections—Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim.
The Golden Agenda of BJP:
One Nation, one election, got its fair share in the election manifestos of the BJP in 2014 and 2019.
Being backed by NITI Aayog in 2017 and the law commission in 2018, which released a report about legal-constitutional aspects of the matter, this agenda got acceleration. In his Independence Day speech in 2019, Prime Minister Modi reiterated the need to hold simultaneous elections. So, it becomes somewhat obvious that the BJP will soon introduce the bill in parliament.
Opposition from INDI Alliance: –
Draconian, impractical, undemocratic, and against democracy and the basic structure of the constitution are some of the heavy words that are being used by the opposition parties for this move of the ruling party.
AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal slammed BJP in a post on X: “The country needs one nation, one education, one healthcare system, not one nation, one election. BJP’s misplaced priorities,”
The most direct attack comes from the argument that the decision of implementing ONOE will directly affect the local and regional parties, and the prominence of only national parties will flourish, which will impact the democracy and constitution in the long run.
