 "Ram Nath Kovind")
The government on Friday announced a committee under former President Ram Nath Kovind to explore the feasibility of "one nation, one election".
Government sources were tight-lipped on whether a constitutional amendment to pave the way for simultaneous elections would be introduced in the forthcoming special session of Parliament from September 18 to 22, or whether it could be achieved through administrative measures. The government had on Thursday announced the special session to be held over five days from September 18.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President J P Nadda called on Kovind after the government made public its decision to set up the committee. Sources said Kovind was expected to speak to experts, and he might also consult leaders of different political parties.
Amid speculation that the women's reservation Bill — which provides for reserving one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha and state Legislative Assemblies for women — could be on the agenda of the special session, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said the schedule was being prepared and would be circulated "very shortly". He declined to comment on the items on the agenda. The two announcements – the special session and the Kovind committee – coincided with the two-day meeting of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in Mumbai.
India used to have simultaneous Lok Sabha and state Assembly polls until 1967. Later, in 1982, the Election Commission mooted the idea of bringing back simultaneous polls. The Law Commission studied the issue in 1999 and again in 2018, as did the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, in its report in December 2015. In 2017, the NITI Aayog also submitted a paper on the benefits of simultaneous polls authored by Bibek Debroy and Kishore Desai.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, has often spoken about the need for simultaneous elections, including at the first all-party meeting before the start of the first session of the 17th Lok Sabha in June 2019. These will reduce the financial burden caused by almost continuous election cycles and the fact that development work suffers during the polling period, he has said.
The Election Commission is currently busy finalising the election schedule for Mizoram, Telangana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and is expected to announce poll dates in the first week of October. The term of the Mizoram Assembly ends on December 17 and those of others in January 2024. The next round of Assembly polls — Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim — is scheduled with the Lok Sabha polls in April-May 2024, while Jharkhand, Haryana and Maharashtra are to go to the polls in October 2024.
In its report on 'simultaneous polls' submitted on August 30, 2018, the 21st Law Commission had recommended synchronising all the above Assembly elections with the Lok Sabha polls. It had suggested extending or curtailing the tenures of the Assemblies, as required, by a constitutional amendment to facilitate holding these Assembly polls with the Lok Sabha elections in May 2019. It had said the elections for the states other than those mentioned above could be bunched together and organised two and a half years after the Lok Sabha polls. If simultaneous elections could not be conducted, the commission recommended that all elections falling due in a calendar year be held together.
The Law Commission had, however, noted that simultaneous elections could not be held within the existing framework of the Constitution and might be conducted through appropriate amendments to the Constitution, the Representation of the People Act 1951, and the Rules of Procedure of Lok Sabha and state Assemblies. The commission had said that at least 50 per cent of the states should ratify the constitutional amendments. It had also said that holding simultaneous elections would save public money, reduce the burden on the administrative set-up and security forces, ensure timely implementation of government policies, and ensure that the administrative machinery was engaged in development activities rather than electioneering.
The commission had recommended replacing the 'no-confidence motion' with a 'constructive vote of no-confidence', where the government might only be removed if there was confidence in an alternative government.
