Hold elections simultaneously, says PM Modi; But is it possible?

When Narendra Modi suggested that all elections should be clubbed together so that the cycle of assembly and Lok Sabha elections – which puts the party and its workers on a non-stop treadmill of elections – he was neither the first nor the only one to moot the suggestion.

In December, 2015, Election Commissioner Naseem Zaidi had said exactly the same thing. 

Given that holding general elections in India is equal to holding polls in Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia all put together, Zaidi echoed the view of a parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Services, Law and Justice in its report on the feasibility of holding simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies, which was tabled in Parliament in December 2015. “This often leads to policy paralysis and governance deficit,” the report said.

The committee noted that frequent elections disrupt normal life and the functioning of essential services. “If simultaneous elections are held, this period of disruption would be limited to a certain pre-determined period of time”. 

Then there’s the expenditure involved. If the Lok Sabha and state assembly elections are held simultaneously, it would reduce the massive expenditure incurred for conduct of separate elections every year. The committee noted that the Election Commission has estimated that the cost of holding elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies in the current disaggregated form was Rs 4500 crore. 

Because holding elections in India is so important and the credibility of elections has to be established beyond doubt, the manpower employed in holding elections is also huge. 
 

In 2014, when the Lok Sabha election was held along with elections in four states, polling was conducted over nine phases and as many as 1,077 on location companies and 1,349 mobile companies of central forces had to be deployed, apart from the huge contingent of polling staff drawn from central and state services. The Standing Committee says this can be avoided if elections are held together.

The question then is, if events like Uttarakhand happen – rebels from within the ruling party topple the government – what happens to the assembly? Will it have to wait until the rest of the country is ready for the election cycle?

The report notes: “Almost all political parties who appeared before the Committee felt that simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies is a cost effective noble proposition but difficult to implement because of our Constitutional arrangement”. 

Is anyone surprised?

Complicated. So Modi may have become weary of endless campaigning, but maybe the answer is to disengage – not force elections to be held simultaneously.