'One Nation One Election' is Bad for India’s Democracy

One Nation One Election (ONOE) is an idea that sounds good, but will not serve India’s people well. Its touted benefits are spurious, and our history reveals that popular Prime Ministers choose to hold elections simultaneously or separately based on their own political calculus, not the people’s benefit. 

The Modi Cabinet recently accepted the recommendations of the Kovind Committee to elect India’s national, state, and local assemblies simultaneously. The ONOE idea was first proposed by PM Modi in 2016, and last year he established a nine-member committee under ex-President Ram Nath Kovind to examine it. He now wishes to push it through the next Parliament. 

From 1951-1962, Prime Minister Nehru held India’s first three elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies simultaneously because he and his Congress Party were extremely popular nationwide. The party won majorities in nearly all states, and Nehru handpicked their Chief Ministers, running the whole country from New Delhi. “In the central and most state governments, the party and government were Siamese twins, joined at head, hip, and toe,” wrote Granville Austin, famed chronicler of India’s Constitution.

But when in the 1967 election the Congress’s majority in the Lok Sabha was cut to 25 and the Party lost eight states, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi decided to de-link national and state elections. She launched a major welfare program under her garibi hatao campaign, dissolved the Lok Sabha a year early, and called elections in 1971. Her Congress (R) won 350 of the 520 seats, gaining a two-thirds majority.  

Mrs Gandhi, however, didn’t de-link Tamil Nadu. In that state, CM Karunanidhi also dissolved the assembly early and formed an alliance with Mrs. Gandhi to defeat K Kamaraj, one of her nemeses.  

This tradition of holding elections together or separately at the whim of a Prime Minister is not good for the country’s democracy. Consider, for example, its baneful effects on India’s federal set-up. Given our nation’s size and diversity, it is good for our democracy that state issues, leaders, and parties rise in prominence. Diminishing the value of state elections—which a lumping with national parties, leaders, and issues is bound to do—would only hurt local accountability.  

Consider also the mockery ONOE makes of the basic parliamentary principle that governments can be held accountable and brought down at any time. This is the main advantage that our Founding Fathers, especially BR Ambedkar, cited for their choice of the parliamentary system.

If a government falls and a new election is held under ONOE, the new government’s term would have to be truncated, and this is what the Kovind Committee recommends. This is not only unfair to those who campaign and those who win, it’s also undemocratic. People choose governments to deliver on their campaign promises, but a government chosen for, say, just a few months, can neither deliver nor be held accountable. 

Modi’s opponents have charged that the Kovind Committee’s report was made-to-order. The charge is justifiable if you judge the report by its main argument, that holding several elections “casts a huge burden on the Government, businesses, workers, Courts, political parties, candidates contesting elections, and civil society at large.”

India cannot both brag about being the world’s largest flourishing democracy and consider holding elections a burden. Is there anything more important than our democracy and anything more fundamental than people choosing their own leaders? 

Besides, the Committee’s recommendation for reducing this burden doesn’t really amount to much. It suggests reducing the number of elections from the current three (Lok Sabha, State, and Panchayats) to two (Lok Sabha plus State, and Panchayats 100 days later). Even if you combine the Lok Sabha and State elections, the candidates, workers, parties, and civil society organisations would campaign separately for each election. The burden on the governments and businesses won’t change much either, because it’s a myth that the Moral Code of Conduct during elections stops all government work. The Code only restricts governments from launching new schemes or initiating employee transfers.  

No doubt Modi himself, and his party colleagues, are burdened by too many elections. But what business is it of the Centre—or the Prime Minister—to be involved in every state election? It only hurts local accountability. If India allowed state governments to be more independent—separately elected, based on local issues, run by local leaders, with more control over their finances—we would have better governance on the ground. And one state election won’t burden other states or the Centre.  

The Kovind Committee also argues that simultaneous elections would spur the country’s economic growth and lower its electoral expenditure. This is mainly based on the premise that synchronised elections would bring “certainty.” But how certain can anyone be about when a parliamentary government at the Centre or in a state will fall? The Committee offers no remedy for India’s infamous politicking and horse-trading in bringing governments down. 

As for the electoral expenditure, the Committee reports that governments currently spend about Rs 4500 crores in conducting national and state elections. That is less than Rs 50 per eligible voter and should be seen as a worthy investment in our democracy. The wasteful money is actually spent by the parties and campaigns; the Committee estimates Rs four to seven lakh crores. But since this is largely black money, it’s naïve to think that it won’t be spent on wooing voters in simultaneous elections. 

There is a general misunderstanding about simultaneous elections, that they are similar to the Presidential form of government. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Committee studied electoral systems in only six countries (South Africa, Indonesia, Philippines, etc.) but not in the UK or the US. In the US, for example, national, state and local assemblies are not only elected separately, but their term lengths are different. Their House of Representatives (Lok Sabha) is chosen every two years, but the President serves for four and Senators for six 

The truth is that One Nation One Election isn’t designed to serve the Indian people. No one is clamouring for it, nor are we suffering from election fatigue, judging from rising levels of voter participation. Our Indian democracy needs more decentralisation, not more centralisation.  

(The author is Founder and CEO of the Divya Himachal group and author of ‘Why India Needs the Presidential System’. He can be reached @BhanuDhamija. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)