The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the introduction of two Bills, one to make the term of the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies simultaneous, and the other to make similar amendments for Delhi and other Union Territory Assemblies.
The Bills, according to sources, are likely to be introduced in the ongoing Winter Session that ends on December 20 and may be sent to a parliamentary committee for further scrutiny.
Disrupted between 1967 and 1971 because of unstable non-Congress governments falling after 1967 and Indira Gandhi advancing the Lok Sabha elections from 1972 to 1971, the plan for simultaneous elections requires a roadmap to surmount the problem of what happens if a government loses majority.
What roadmap for simultaneous elections did the Kovind committee suggest?
The Ramnath Kovind Committee that the Narendra Modi government set up in 2023 to suggest how elections to the Lok Sabha, Assemblies, and municipalities could be held simultaneously suggested one possible roadmap in its report in March.
The panel recommended simultaneous polls for the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days. This requires constitutional amendments. But, as a first step, once Parliament approves holding the Lok Sabha and state elections together, ratification by states will not be required for the amendments.
The second step of synchronising elections to the municipalities and panchayats — done in a way that the local body elections are held within 100 days of the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls — will require ratification by not less than one-half of the states.
What Constitutional amendments are required?
To make sure that simultaneous polls do not run afoul of the Constitution, the Kovind committee has recommended amendments to Article 83 that deals with the duration of the Lok Sabha, and Article 172 that deals with the duration of a state Assembly. This is likely to follow a Presidential notification.
If the amendments fail to get parliamentary approval, the notification will become null and void. If the amendments are adopted, simultaneous polls will become a reality and the terms of most state governments will get truncated during the transition.
Once “One Nation, One Election” becomes a reality, say in 2029, if the Lok Sabha or a state Assembly gets dissolved before its term of five years because of a loss of majority on the floor of the House, the committee has proposed that fresh elections be held. These will be “midterm elections” and the new government will last only for the remainder of the full term of the Lok Sabha and its term will be called “unexpired term”.
If the Modi government decides to kickstart the process in 2034, the President will issue a notification on the day of the first sitting of the next Lok Sabha, as per the Kovind scheme, and the rest will be identical to what is discussed above, with truncated Assemblies between 2029 and 2034.
Will it lead to truncated terms for some state governments?
If simultaneous elections come into effect in 2029, the process has to start now. After the constitutional provisions on the duration of the Lok Sabha and Assemblies are amended by Parliament, many state Assemblies will have to be dissolved in 2029 much before the end of their five-year term to facilitate simultaneous elections.
While the Kovid panel has left it to the Centre to decide when it can be ready for simultaneous polls, this is the roadmap it has suggested. The 10 states that got new governments last year will hold elections again in 2028 and the new governments will be in power for about a year or less. These states are Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Karnataka, Telangana, Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan. Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Gujarat, even if they deliver clear majorities to a party, will have governments that last two years or less as they are scheduled to go to polls in 2027.
West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, and Kerala will have governments that will last three years as they are scheduled to go to polls in 2026. Only Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Haryana, and Jharkhand that went to polls this year can have the same government for about five years.
Will it ease the burden of frequent polls, if approved?
Not necessarily. Governments can still fall at the Centre or in the states, fresh elections are held, and fresh governments with truncated terms can be voted to power in “midterm” elections. But the transition to simultaneous polls may disincentivise no-confidence motions after perhaps two or three years of a government.
How many parties supported or opposed the move before the Kovind panel?
Of the 47 parties that submitted their opinion on the matter, 32 supported the idea and 15 opposed it. NDA ally Telugu Desam Party, which did not give its opinion to the panel, has told The Indian Express it supports the move in principle.
All the 32 parties which supported the move before the panel were either BJP allies or friendly towards the party. Since then, the BJD has turned against the BJP. Of the 15 that opposed the move, five are parties outside the NDA umbrella which are in power in states, including the Congress.
How do the numbers stack up in Parliament?
After the Lok Sabha polls, the parties that supported simultaneous elections before the Kovind panel account for 271 MPs in the Lok Sabha (including 240 from the BJP), just one short of a simple majority in the Lok Sabha. The NDA, including the TDP, and other parties that neither supported nor opposed simultaneous polls have a Lok Sabha strength of 293 MPs.
The government will require 362 votes or the support of two-thirds of members present and voting if the Lok Sabha turns out in full strength. Only if 439 members are present and voting in the Lok Sabha on the voting day – and the remaining more than 100 abstain – will the Bill garner a two-thirds majority with the NDA’s strength of 293, unless the government can convince non-NDA parties to back it. This means that unless it can get Opposition parties on board in a significant way, the constitutional amendment Bill can fall in the Lower House.
In the Rajya Sabha, the NDA has 113 MPs and along with six nominated MPs and two Independents, the ruling alliance has 121 MPs. The INDIA bloc has 85 MPs and can count on the support of Independent MP Kapil Sibal. The YSR Congress Party, Biju Janata Dal, and Bharat Rashtra Samithi, which are not associated with either bloc, have 19 MPs. Apart from them, the AIADMK has four MPs in the Rajya Sabha and the BSP one, and neither leans towards the INDIA bloc. Currently, there are 231 Rajya Sabha MPs in all, and the two-thirds mark required for a constitutional amendment, if all of them are present and voting, is 154.
What has the EC said?
In its submission to the Kovind committee, the Election Commission (EC) sent the same response that it had provided the Law Commission of India, which had examined the issue in March 2023.
The polling body said at least Rs 8,000 crore would be needed to procure the EVMs and VVPATs to hold simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and state Assembly. The EC did not consider the requirement for local body polls as they are administered by state election officers. This amount did not include the costs of transportation, warehousing, first-level checking, and other related costs, according to the EC.
In a submission to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice in 2015, the EC had listed several “difficulties” in implementing the idea. The chief issue it highlighted was the large-scale purchase of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines. The EC also told the parliamentary panel that the machines would need to be “replaced every 15 years which would again entail expenditure”.
— With inputs from Damini Nath, Lalmani Verma and Anjishnu Das
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