Welcome proposal

BS OPINION

This paper has argued repeatedly that the present situation, where at least half a dozen states are heading for elections in any given year, in a calendar quite independent of a central election time-table, makes for permanent populism.

And in the age of coalitions, governments fall before their term has expired, so that elections become even more frequent than had been intentioned.

Indeed, Mr Advani specifically refers to the pre-election pressures on the government in power to make what are considered voter-friendly pricing and policy decisions "" like the proposal for a new master plan for the capital city, which has been severely criticised by anyone without an unauthorised house in the capital.

It has been obvious for some time that the government is already into election mode, though the Lok Sabha elections are more than a year away. Concessions have therefore been made for politically sensitive industries like sugar. Pension schemes have been introduced with a state subsidy.

Potentially unpopular issues like conditional access to cable TV, are being put on the back burner, and every lobby group is being pandered to. Gas pricing reform has been initiated, but with a very modest half-step.

And businessmen who were opposed to the introduction of a value added tax system, to take yet another example, have got their way and thereby postponed a sensible idea. All of these have a short-term calculus, but do damage in the longer run.

And the prospect of this kind of decision-making continuing for another year and three months is very discouraging indeed. Why not, then, reduce the election season to as short a period as possible, so that disruption is minimised?

But Mr Advani's proposal does not seem to go beyond the immediate election calendar. The suspicion this generates is that the proposal to combine the next round of state elections with next year's Lok Sabha elections is only a tactical move, aimed at preventing the Congress from benefiting from a positive, post-monsoon mood in the countryside, and ensuring that a mini-Congress wave is thus avoided.

If this is the objective, it suggests the absence of a longer-term and larger vision. This would be sad, if true. Because the problem of a semi-permanent election season has a deeper root.

The underlying issue is the instability of state governments, so that a fixed election cycle becomes impossible to achieve. The remedy for this has long been known, and would be a copy of what already exists in Germany: any legislature throwing out the group in power must simultaneously elect a new leader, so that governance continues and the regular poll schedule does not have to be changed.

However, this will require an amendment to the Constitution, and this will take time since the issue concerns the states as well, and a majority of states will have to approve the change before it becomes law.