One India, One Election

Context: The idea for simultaneous elections for all the states as well as for general assembly was pitched by some national leaders.

Advantages of simultaneous elections:

1. It would save public money and time of politicians that is wasted in campaigns for elections.
2. It would encourage more focus on governance and policy making as winning elections become the sole objective of executive in case of frequent elections. Hence, governance suffers.
3. It would reduce the vote bank
4. It would result into better checks on electoral malpractices.
5. It would help in reducing problems of casteism, communalism etc which are mostly aggravated during election time.

Disadvantages:

1. Simultaneous elections would result into mixing of national issues with those of state issues. In such a scenario, state issue would get less importance and national parties would have unfair advantage over regional parties.
2. There is always a tendency for voters to vote the same party in power in the state and at the Centre in case the Lok Sabha polls and the state elections are held together.
3. Problems would emerge in case of premature dissolution of state assemblies.
4. One election in a five year period would not ensure accountability on the part of politicians which has been the case in frequent elections.

Advantages of present system (frequent elections):

1. It would ensure answer-ability and accountability of politicians towards citizens.
2. It keeps the politicians in touch with ‘pulse of the public’ and the result of elections at various levels can ensure the government the necessary ‘course correction’.
3. It also ensures that the mood of the nation at a particular moment does not hand over political power across a three-tiered democratic structure to one party. Hence, It keeps checks and balances via different parties at centre and states.
4. It creates work opportunities for lakhs of people at grassroot level.
5. It ensures separation of national and regional issues.

Disadvantages of present system:

1. Pace of economic development hampers.
2. Encourages short term thinking (of winning elections) on the part of executive.
3. Encourages vote bank politics
4. Significant time of executive is wasted during electoral campaign which could be used in governance of the country.

Law commission has recommended an amendment to the rule of no confidence motion. In this system the opposition party leader moves both the no-confidence motion and a confidence motion, and he would become the new leader if the both the motions are passed. In this way, premature dissolution of state assemblies can be avoided.    

Conclusion: The idea of simultaneous elections comes with many challenges especially in a large country like India. It can be implemented with a few modifications that are suitable to our democratic environment. But reform process should not be stopped here. Further electoral reforms are required to tackle other challenges related to cap on spending in elections, transparency in political party’s funding, decriminalization of politics, electoral malpractices etc.