The recommendation of a Parliamentary panel to hold Lok Sabha and Assembly elections simultaneously to reduce expenditure and disruption of normal life has drawn mixed response from political parties, while the Election Commission has pointed out "several difficulties" in accepting the proposal.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Personnel has made a strong pitch for holding simultaneous Assembly and Lok Sabha elections all over the country.
"The Committee does not feel that simultaneous election in every five years cannot be held in the near future but slowly it would reach in stages for which tenure of some of the state Legislative Assemblies need to be curtailed or extended," the Committee said in its report 'Feasibility of holding simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and state Legislative Assemblies' tabled in Parliament earlier this week.
While AIADMK, AGP, IUML, DMDK and SAD have supported the idea with some suggestions, Congress, Trinamool Congress, CPI, AIMIM and NCP have rejected it, according to the report.
The report did not mention what stand other parties, including the BJP, took.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has extended its support to the idea in principle.
"Having simultaneous elections in India would mean that both the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies should first be given a fixed term. Together with the fixed term, fixed dates of election and counting should also be announced as in the case of the Presidential election in the United States," the AIADMK said.
In its submission, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has said that it supports the idea of holding simultaneous elections as it would reduce financial burden on small parties and lessen the time period for which the model code is applied to the states which often leads to policy paralysis and slowdown the implementation of developmental programmes.
The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) supported the idea and said that it would lead to significant saving of time, energy and resources of the country.
Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) has also supported
the proposal. It said in case of mid-term polls, the government elected should have a term for the remaining period only and not the entire five years.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), while supporting the idea said that although it favours simultaneous election, there are some debatable points. It wanted to know the mechanism to be followed in case of a hung assembly.
The Congress said the proposal of holding simultaneous elections, "ideal as it may sound, is impractical, unworkable and can lead to a scenario where the necessary balance in Indian democracy given the diversity of the country is lost."
Trinamool Congress has rejected the idea, saying postponement of elections of a state Assembly ensure all Assemblies and Lok Sabha have elections together is anti-democratic and unconstitutional.
However, the party has submitted that it supports holding of simultaneous elections to Panchayats and Municipal bodies.
The Communist Party of India (CPI) has said that this "proposal looks ideal. But there are many practical problems.
"...We are of the considered view that in the present situation we do not consider it feasible to conduct elections to both the Houses at once," it said.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen said there exists little feasibility of holding simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and all the state legislative Assemblies in the "current complex political scenario" and amending certain constitutional provisions would not be enough.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) too said that holding elections of Lok Sabha and state Assemblies simultaneously is not feasible.
The EC pointed out "several difficulties" which might be encountered for conducting simultaneous elections.
The main issue highlighted by EC was that simultaneous conduct of elections would require large-scale purchase of Electronic Voting Machines and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines.
"For conducting simultaneous elections, the Commission expects that a total of Rs 9,284.15 crore will be needed for procurement of EVMs and VVPATs.
"The machines would also be need to be replaced every 15 years which would again entail expenditure. Further, storing these machines would increase the warehousing cost," the Parliamentary panel said quoting EC.
