Feasibility and Challenges on One Nation One Election

Topic- Feasibility and Challenges on One Nation One Election

Author - Nandan Rathi, Student at Hidayatullah National Law University

Introduction-

Recently the government is mulling to conduct the One Nation One Election [ONOE] across the country. India witnessed its first General Lok Sabha elections in 1950-51 and they are conducted after every five years. Before explaining the crux of ONOE, we should understand how election systems are conducted in India & at which levels they are conducted. 

In India, elections are conducted at three levels. 

Local Body- Municipality & Panchayat

State Level – Vidhan Sabha or state level elections

National Level- Lok Sabha (Highest Level)

Our PM have expressed a desire to have single voter list across the country, in favor of saving quality time. If all levels of elections have a common electoral roll or voter’s list, a lot of time will be saved. The duty of conducting the elections & keeping vigilance is on Election Commission of India (ECI), set up in 1950. Local Body elections are conducted by State Election Commission (SEC), while State and National elections are conducted by ECI. SEC makes a voter list for local elections and ECI makes another list, and ONOE will merge both lists, to vote for their representatives. One single voters list [common voters list] would be only possible when states allow the SEC to borrow voters list from the Election Commission. Once this becomes a norm, there would be less efforts and less expenses. 

This is not the first that a party has expressed to conduct ONOE. In 1999 & 2004 Election Commission floated the idea, while the Law Commission in 2015 in its report recommended holding one election. 

To implement one election across country, some changes are required. Article 243K & Article 243ZA would have to be amended. Central government must convince state governments to give permission to SEC to use the voters list from EC. 

In September 2023, government decided to form a panel for conducting simultaneous elections. As 2024 general election is near, one faction is calling this move as “revolutionary policy” while others are criticizing this as “abuse of powers”. Holding simultaneous elections is not new, as from 1950 to 1967, India adopted holding one election for both central and state level, but due to various political turmoil this practice lost its existence. 

Currently the simultaneous elections are held in Belgium, Sweden, South Africa and even Indonesia is planning for the same. 

BENEFITS-

• India will overcome the “Inefficiency of Model Code of Conduct mode”. It means from the date of announcement of election to declaration of results, in between government cannot announce any development or welfare scheme even if they are important. In 2019, for seven months the government stopped functioning. 

• It will drastically reduce the insane amount of money spent on election expenditure. 2019 elections of Lok Sabha alone cost us Rs. 60,000 crore, World’s most expensive elections. So, if simultaneous elections take place, we can save substantial money. Setting up of polling stations, security and logistics arrangement, EVMs for two makes doesn’t make much sense. 

• The time spent by government officials on election duty is time they are not spending on governance; this is called governance downtime. Such important people will have to work only once.

• Also, the amount of money spent by political parties on campaigning would come down drastically. 

DRAWBACKS-

• Tenure of parliament & state Assemblies legislature need to be synchronized, which is difficult in reality. 

• Deployment of parliamentary forces that aid the elections across the country is challenging. 

• Regional parties will lose their existence by the National party domination. 

• If a party loses its power in state & opposition does not have numbers to form a government, would the government still continue in power?

• A Governor can assume power in state, but president rule in country is not feasible.