The one­-election idea is a farce

The one­-election idea is a farce

Context

The case for holding simultaneous elections in the diverse, federal Indian polity is weak

News

In his address on National Law Day 2017, Prime Minister of India once again raised the issue ofsimultaneous elections to Parliament and all State Assemblies, under the banner of “one nation one election”

• 4 reasons: He also cited four reasons:

1. Massive expenditure
2. Diversion of security and civil staff from primary duties
3. Impact on governance due to the model code of conduct, and
4. Disruption to normal public life

Author’s contention

The case is weak and the reasons are a mere alibi (cover)

Massive expenditure?

• Cost incurred by EC: The Election Commission incurs a total cost of roughly ₹8,000 crore to conduct all State and federal elections in a span of five years, or roughly ₹1,500 crore every year
• Cost per Indian voter:Nearly 600 million Indians vote in India’s elections, which means, it costs ₹27 per voter per year to keep India an electoral democracy
• To put this in context, all the States and the Centre combined incurred an expenditure of nearly ₹30 lakh crore in FY2014
• Not so massive after all: Surely, 0.05% of India’s total annual expenditure is not a large price to pay for the pride of being the world’s largest and most vibrant electoral democracy. The notion that elections are prohibitively expensive is false and misleading

Code of conduct and polls

Model code of conduct

The model code of conduct for elections was agreed to by political parties in 1979, and prohibits the ruling party from incurring capital expenditure for certain projects after elections are announced. Author states that if the political parties feel that code hinders governance in other states, then it should be the code, not the electoral cycle which needs to be reformed

The real reason: Excessive dependence on national leaders

Governance paralysis due to State elections is a mere alibi. The real reason is that the two national parties are excessively dependent on their national leaders’ campaigns in State elections, as seen in Gujarat. This is certainly a drain on the Prime Minister’s time and a distraction from governance. Depending on their national leaders is the problem and the prerogative of the national parties. It is not the fault of the electoral system

• In the elections in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, in 2016, and where the two national parties and their leaders had a minimal role, nothing stopped the Union government from continuing its governance for the rest of India. Thus it is wrong to combine the interests of the national parties with those of the “flaws” of the electoral system

Diversion of staff& disruption of public life

Author states that above two reasons are not sufficient to revamp the electoral system because interim accountability is much more important where a voter is able to exercise his/her right twice every 5 years rather than having no option to express his/her opinion for the next 5 years

Voter behavior

Author’s own research of all simultaneous elections to State Assemblies and Parliament between 1999 and 2014 shows that simultaneous elections do have an impact on voter behaviour

• Analysis: These elections comprised 513 million voter choices. In 77% of these constituencies, voters chose the same political party for both State and Centre. When elections were held even six months apart, only 61% chose the same political party. When elections became disparate, there was no evidence of the voter choosing the same party
• Deduction:There is clear empirical evidence that most Indian voters tend to choose the same party when elections are held simultaneously to both Centre and State, with the relationship diminishing as elections are held farther away

Political autonomy

Simultaneous elections impinge on the political autonomy of States

• Present situation: Today, any elected State government can choose to dissolve its Assembly and call for fresh elections. If elections are to be held simultaneously, States will have to give up this power and wait for a national election schedule. There can be legitimate reasons for State governments to dissolve their Assemblies and call for fresh elections, as should be the case in Tamil Nadu
• If elections are to be held simultaneously: Under a simultaneous elections regime, the State will be beholden to the Union government for elections to its State, which goes against the very grain of political autonomy under our federal structure

Additional read: Research done by the author as cited in the article above is listed here