Speculation over outcome of the elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab and Manipur has provided excitement to the political horizon. If BJP wins UP, then its hold in New Delhi will be consolidated. If Congress, pillion riding on the Samajwadi cycle in UP and solo in Uttarakhand and Punjab, acquits itself well, then fortunes of the grand old party may look up. Axiomatically, BJP will not be perceived to be as strong nationally as it presently is. Conversely, the perceived rise of the Rahul-Priyanka duo will be blunted if Congress fares poorly.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken about the need to hold polls to the Lok Sabha and all the Vidhan Sabhas simultaneously, as was the practice in the initial years of our Republic. President Pranab Mukherjee included this thought in his broadcast to the nation on the eve of Republic Day. He said, “Time is ripe for a constructive debate on electoral reforms and a return to the practice of the early decades after Independence.” He suggested that the Election Commission could take this exercise forward in consultation with political parties. The President broached this subject twice on 25 January—he had dwelt on it in his speech at the National Voters’ Day as well. A debate on this issue in Parliament is likely after the head of state has echoed the Prime Minister’s thought repeatedly and strongly.The thought was mooted first in the 170th report of the Law Commission of India in 1999, which cited stability in governance as raison d’être. Last year, a Parliamentary Standing Committee also studied the feasibility of holding simultaneous polls and this could be the basis for initiating a debate in Parliament during the course of the year. The move has the apparent support of the BJP. The Election Commission had elicited the views of the political parties sometime back. The Anna DMK, Asom Gana Parishad, Shiromani Akali Dal, Indian Union Muslim League and some other regional parties were in favour of the idea. The Trinamool Congress, NCP and AIMIM opposed it. Congress and the Communists felt holding simultaneous polls was ideal, but impractical, as it could lead to a scenario where necessary balance in India’s democracy, given the diversity of the country, is lost.
The decline of Congress in 1967 and emergence of coalition governments in states formed by non-Congress parties created a scenario in which these disparate combinations (BJP’s precursor Jan Sangh and CPI shared power in Bihar) collapsed like nine pins and a number of Assemblies were dissolved in 1968 and 1969. Indira Gandhi, handicapped by numbers post the 1969 split in Congress, dissolved the Fourth Lok Sabha, whose tenure was till March 1972, prematurely on 27 December 1970 and triumphantly rode to victory in March 1971. Thereafter, having emerged as “Durga” by vanquishing Pakistan in December 1971, she ordered the dissolution of 22 Assemblies in early 1972 and again romped home, dissipating the Opposition. This set in motion the present chain of separate Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls.
Apart from the first three Lok Sabhas, the 7th, 8th, 10th, 14th and 15th Lok Sabhas could complete their full five-year terms, while the 6th, 9th, 11th and 12th Lok Sabhas were dissolved prematurely As a result of premature dissolutions and extension of terms of both the Lok Sabha and various state legislative Assemblies, there have been separate elections to Lok Sabha and state legislative Assemblies and the cycle of simultaneous elections has been disturbed over the past five decades.
Among the suggestions for electoral reform mooted in recent years there has been one from Bhairon Singh Shekhawat that a leaf be borrowed from the German Constitution and any motion of no-confidence must have a simultaneous motion of confidence in another leader, so that tenure of the legislature and the process of governance are not affected.
Another suggestion, mooted by the Election Commission, has been that tenures of Vidhan Sabhas be either extended or cut short, so that simultaneous state and Union elections are held. The cost of holding election and strategic administrative compulsions are cited as a reason for this move. (Nearly 2,500 battalions of Central Armed Police Forces were deployed across the country in the 2014 poll.)
The Constitution of India is federal in nature, and not unitary. The term Centre is a misnomer. India is a Union of States. There is no hierarchal relationship. State governments are sovereign as per the State List. The Union government’s writ runs on the Union List and extends to the Concurrent List of subjects specified in the Constitution. The United States of America, which like India, is a federation, does not hold simultaneous polls. Elections to the UK House of Commons were held in May 2014 and to the Assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in May 2016. South Africa and Sweden hold simultaneous Union and Provincial polls.
Electoral reform is a noble thought. Equally principled are recommendations of the Sarkaria panel on devolution of power to the states. Both reforms are called for. Unity in diversity, the leitmotif of India that is Bharat, must be upheld while these are debated; acted on.