New Delhi: This is not the first time that the subject of simultaneous elections has come up for discussion. In the first two decades after Independence, general elections and assembly polls were held simultaneously, that is, in 1951-52, 1957, 1962 and 1967.
However, the dissolution of some state assemblies in 1968-69, followed by the disbandment of Lok Sabha in 1970, and the subsequent general elections in 1971 disrupted this cycle, according to the 2018 draft report of the Law Commission of India on simultaneous elections.
Since then, this question has been debated a number of times.
On Wednesday, the Union Cabinet approved the ‘one nation, one election’ proposal, accepting the recommendations of a report by a high-level committee led by former President Ram Nath Kovind submitted on 15 March.
Announcing the decision, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “The Union Cabinet has accepted the recommendations by the high-level committee on ‘one nation, one election’. As you are aware, from 1951 to 1967, simultaneous elections were conducted. Besides this, the Law Commission in its 170th report had said one election should be held to the Lok Sabha and all legislative assemblies once in five years so that the development in the country does not stop and there is lesser expenditure, among other factors.”
The origins of the idea
The Election Commission of India (ECI) in 1983 came out with an Inaugural Annual Report which spoke of conducting simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies.
Subsequently, the Law Commission of India, as Vaishnaw mentioned, in its 1999 report on ‘Reform of Electoral Laws’ recommended simultaneous elections as an electoral reform. The commission, headed by Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, in its report said, “We must go back to the situation where the elections to Lok Sabha and all the Legislative Assemblies are held at once.”
The recommendation was also backed in 2015 when the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, in its 79th report, said that holding simultaneous elections would benefit “long term good governance”.
Nearly four years later, addressing these recommendations, the Law Commission headed by Justice B.S. Chauhan came out with a draft report on 30 August 2018. It said that simultaneous elections could not be held within the existing framework of the Constitution without appropriate amendments to the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act, 1951, among others. Additionally, it said that a two-thirds majority of both houses of Parliament must ratify the constitutional amendments.
Holding simultaneous elections has certain requirements, the report added. These include: “(i) Curtailment and extension of terms of the House of the People/ State Legislative Assemblies; (ii.) Amendment to relevant provisions of the Constitution (iii.) Amendment to the Representation of People Act, 1951 (iv.) The ratification by the States to these Constitutional amendments”.
How will these elections take place?
The Kovind panel report recommends a two-step process to hold simultaneous elections: the first would be conducting elections to the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies at the same time.
In the second step, the elections to municipalities and panchayats will be synchronised in a way that they are held within 100 days of the general elections, since “elections to Local bodies will have larger requirements of equipment, manpower and other resources,” the report says.
The Constitution, it noted, would have to be amended to introduce concepts like “full term” and an “unexpired period”—where the House of the assembly is dissolved sooner than the expiry of its “full term”.
The report defines “full term” to mean, “Five years from the date appointed for the first meeting of the House of the People or Legislative Assembly at the end of which House shall stand dissolved, which period of five years shall be hereafter referred to as the full term.”
Meanwhile, an “unexpired period” is defined as, “Where the House of the People or Legislative Assembly is dissolved sooner than upon the expiry of its full term, then the period between its date of dissolution and the period of five years from the date appointed for its first meeting, shall be referred to as its unexpired term.”
In order to make sure that the Lok Sabha and state elections reach the end of their terms at the same time, the panel recommends a “one-time transitory measure”.
“After the general elections, when the House of the People is constituted, the President would by notification issued on the same date as the date of the first sitting of the house, bring into force the provisions for transition, and this date would be called the ‘Appointed date,’” the report says.
Once the transition provisions are brought into play, the tenure of all state assemblies that are constituted in any election after the “appointed date” will come to an end on the expiry of the full term of the Lok Sabha, irrespective of when those assemblies are formed.
This will ensure that the Lok Sabha and all state assemblies are ready for simultaneous elections at the end of this term. “Thereafter, the amendments proposed to the tenure of the House of the People and the State Legislative assemblies will make sure that the synchronisation is maintained,” the panel says.
Amendments to Articles 83 & 172
To implement the above steps, the appropriate constitutional changes need to be adopted, the Kovind report says, recommending changes to the Constitution—through both the introduction of new provisions and changes to existing ones made through constitutional amendment bills.
The key recommendations include the amendment of Article 83 (duration of Houses of Parliament) and Article 172 (duration of state legislatures), and the introduction of Article 82A (procedure for transition to simultaneous elections).
“For these amendments, ratification by the states is not required,” the panel says.
Article 83(2), which deals with the duration of the Lok Sabha, at present, says that the Lok Sabha “unless sooner dissolved, shall continue for five years from the date appointed for its first meeting and no longer and the expiration of the said period of five years shall operate as a dissolution of the House”. However, the panel suggests modifying this five-year-period to say “full term”.
It recommends a similar amendment to Article 172—the analogous provision to Article 83(2)—which outlines the duration of state legislatures. It says that, “Every Legislative Assembly of every State, unless sooner dissolved, shall continue for five years from the date appointed for its first meeting and no longer.”
Both Articles 83 and 172 further provide for a limited extension of the term of the Houses only during a period of emergency.
Insertion of Article 82A
A new provision, Article 82A(1), will allow the President of India to bring this provision into force “by notification issued on the date of the first sitting of the House of the People after a general election”.
“The date of such notification shall be called the Appointed date,” the report says.
This tentative provision will lay down the procedure through which the country will transition to a system of simultaneous elections. Under Article 82A(2), all state assemblies constituted in any general election held after the “appointed date” shall come to an end on the expiry of the full term of Lok Sabha.
Further, under Article 82A(3), following the expiry of the “full term” referred to in 82A(1), the Election Commission is to conduct simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. The provisions of Part XV of the Constitution will apply to these elections with necessary changes that the EC may specify.
According to the panel, the President will also have the power to delay elections to any legislative assembly by order under Article 82A(4), which will say, “If the Election Commission is of the opinion that the elections to any Legislative Assembly cannot be conducted at the time of the General Election, it may make a recommendation to the President, to declare by an Order, that the election to that Legislative Assembly may be conducted at a later date.”
Article 324A
To conduct synchronised elections to municipalities and panchayats, a new provision–Article 324A—will need to be inserted. In case the term of the municipalities and panchayats expires sooner than five years from the date appointed from their first meeting, the term of the local bodies constituted after a midterm election will continue till the unexpired period of their term, until the next general election.
Broadly, the provision (Article 324) in its present form, deals with the “superintendence, direction and control of elections to be vested in an Election Commission”. The addition of this new clause would allow the Parliament to make provisions to ensure the elections to local bodies are held together with general elections.
Amendment to Article 325
Article 325 currently says there shall be “one general electoral roll for every territorial constituency for election to either House of Parliament or to the House or either House of the Legislature of a State and no person shall be ineligible for inclusion in any such roll or claim to be included in any special electoral roll for any such constituency on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or any of them”.
However, the panel suggests modifying this to include “municipality” and “panchayat” elections in this provision.
“On and from the date notified by the President, there shall be a Single Electoral Roll for every territorial constituency for election in the House of the People, Legislature of a State or to a Municipality or a Panchayat,” the second part of the provision will state, as proposed in the report.
These electoral rolls referred to will be made by the Election Commission in consultation with the State Election Commissions. The electoral roll prepared under Article 325(3) shall substitute any electoral roll prepared earlier by either the Election Commission under Article 325 or the State Election Commissions under Article 243K and Article 243ZA, the report adds.
What other laws require modification
The report also suggests amending Section 5 of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991 (GNCTD, 1991), which entails a five-year-duration for the legislative assembly of the Delhi government.
The amended section will say, “Legislative Assembly, unless sooner dissolved, shall continue for five years from the date appointed for its first meeting and no longer and the expiration of the said period of five years shall come to end with the expiration of the full term of the House of the People.”
The same clause is provided in Section 5 of The Government of Union Territories Act, 1963 (GUT Act, 1963), and Section 17 of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. Thus, the panel suggests modifying the “five-year” term of legislative assemblies in these statutes to say “full term”.
What experts think
Speaking to ThePrint, former secretary general of the Lok Sabha P.D.T Achary said that the changes suggested by the panel would tinker with the basic structure of the Constitution as the assemblies’ tenures become uncertain. “The Constitution has given a fixed tenure of five years for the assemblies. The amendment could lead to a possibility where this fixed term is replaced by a two-year-term or a four-year-term, even.”
Parliament, through the Constitution, is looking to introduce a provision which could affect the state legislature, thereby violating the principle of federalism, which forms part of the basic structure of the Constitution, Achary said.
“Any amendment which alters or has the effect of altering the basic structure, cannot be done by the Parliament,” he said, while relying on the 1973 Kesavanada Bharati case, where a 13-judge bench of the Supreme Court, in a 7:6 majority, laid down the basic structure doctrine which protects the fundamental features of the Constitution. This basic structure is “inviolable” and cannot be modified by Parliament, the court had said.
On the other hand, Justice Pradeep Nandrajog, former chief justice of the Bombay High Court, said that only minor changes have been suggested by the Kovind panel, while adding that the first time simultaneous elections came up was when the E.M.S Namboodiripad government in Kerala was dismissed by the Centre in 1959.
“The wholesome changes came when Mrs Indira Gandhi in 1969 dissolved the Parliament earlier. Otherwise, till 1967, you would see that the elections to the states and the Parliament would be held simultaneously. The advantages of such simultaneous elections, as we understood even then, were that the elections and polling would be held on one day throughout the country,” the former judge said.
Justice Nandrajog also explained that the original Constitution had also envisaged that elections would be held simultaneously. “Essentially, this meant that the same returning officer and the same manpower would conduct elections simultaneously, and the logistics would also work out.”
However, the judge added that logistics between then and now have changed. “This is because, whether you print the ballot papers once or twice, you would have to invest a lot of money in the electronic voting machines and the VVPAT ones. But that would be a one-time thing.”
On the constitutional amendments required, he said, “The amendments to be made are twofold. One, you would either have to extend the terms of some state assemblies and you may have to curtail for some, to have these elections simultaneously. However, this would be a one-time amendment.’
The second amendment, he said, would be that if for some reason in a state, a government cannot be formed, then the election would be held for the remainder of the term so that it is in sync with the mainstream ‘one nation, one election’.
Finally, he underlined how the process would save time, while adding that the current polls “are stretched over for two months now, starting from the first day of polling, in any place in India, till the last day”.
Additionally, he said, the Model Code of Conduct would also have to be implemented when elections are announced. “So, for three months, all that development work, movement of files, everything comes to a halt,” he said.
“And this happens in a state thrice—once when the general polls are held. Secondly, when the state elections are being held, and, thirdly, when municipal or panchayat elections are held. So, actually, what happens in a five-year-period, is that the government is at a standstill for two-three months, thrice in a span of five years,” Justice Nandrajog said.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)