The One Nation One Election (ONOE) project looks both interesting and challenging even thinking of the sheer magnitude of the project and our 9.7 million voters, 1.2 million poll booths, 5.5 million EVMs and VVPATs, 15 million poll personnel, all scattered over a geographical area of 3.3 million sq. kilometres.
Not unexpectedly, ever after the report of the ONOE panel in March and the Union Cabinet’s nod earlier this week, the debate mills started buzzing primetimes. The pro-establishment voices felt this would be the priority booster doze for governance, whilst the Opposition voices tasted the recipe of a “total crash” of our “federal edifice”.
On my part, though I’m no constitutional expert nor a former legislator, I felt I’ll all the same share my thoughts in simple words, on this extremely important subject as an elder member of the civil society having seen all Elections from 1952.
1. What’s statedly “wrong” today: “Disruption” of governance:
a) Frequent interruptions in the implementation of new projects due to frequent elections to one or the other legislature in a vicinity, by the Model Code of Conduct. b) High costs and herculean logistic efforts entailed in remarkable frequencies. c) Dwindling voter turnout due to poll fatigue in voters. These are from various sources in reference to the ONOE Panel Report 2024, the Election Commission’s Annual Report 1983, the Law Commission’s Report 1999 and Niti Aayog’s working paper, 2017 on the subject of Poll Reforms.
My Take: I didn’t come across data which proves the implementation of any large project gets hampered due to the frequency of the Model Codes for elections. In any case, the Model Code does not stop ongoing projects. Only announcements and inaugurations are forbidden. I think there should be no difficulties in postponing announcements and inaugurations. But are the 15-odd amendments to the Constitution and the election laws really worth their while? Surprisingly also, I didn’t quite find an authentic auditable statement of the total aggregate costs of the establishment and candidates yearwise and how they differed in simultaneous elections like Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal in 2024. There are some figures advanced in various articles around, one says the total savings could be around Rs 5,000 crores (boils down to 0.1% of our total budgeted expenditure for this year). The last construct, on poll fatigue, does not hold good either, if you see the J&K Assembly polls held recently, recording a whopping turn-out of 63.5%, close on the heels of the Lok Sabha hustings with just 57.9%.
2. So where do we get at: The key recommendations of the ONOE panel:
a) Lok Sabha Elections 2029. States going to hustings in 2027 and 2028 extend their Assemblies to 2029. States scheduled in 2030 and 2031 curtail their lives and vote in 2029. After 100 days the Panchayats and Municipalities go to vote.
b) The other model for the transitory year, a 2-step approach i.e. 2029 – the Lok Sabha votes along with 50% of States and 2031 – balance 50% of States proceed husting bound for 3 years till 2034 when every State is synchronized.
c) If the government in a State or at the Centre falls in between, there will be a specific election to that legislature only, for its residual tenure till say 2034.
My take: The positive view is that legislators would normally not be motivated to pull down the government if elections were the only way out. But if an alternative government with the same legislators is a possibility, the same spectacles of defection-cum-speakers’-delay could follow bringing no qualitative change in governance on the table.
3. The single electoral roll for all these three polls, is a caution for internal controls and cross-verifications with say the Aadhaar card, from a different database and authority.
4. The Contrarian View: The Opposition holds a view that in a process of electing perpetually unequal “Double Engines” in simultaneous polls, regional issues like demography and ecology could get lost under a larger canvas of larger issues like national security or a national calamity (read, not said) campaigned by a taller leader of larger influence and the average voter could tend to sail with the tide. There could therefore be an encroachment of the Federal structure of the Constitution and in the course of time could even threaten our multi-party elections.
My Take: There could be some psychological truth here. But it did not hold good in the case of say, Buddhadev Bhattacharya (even without the charisma of his predecessor Jyoti Basu in Bengal) 2001, but it held good in the case of say Naveen Patnaik, though an equally charismatic leader in Odisha 2024. The Opposition view I think needs a closer review.
5. My Prescription: I think it’s a good idea to have part-simultaneous polls and I recommend:
a) The Parliamentary elections + 50% of State Assemblies + 50% of municipal bodies in 2029, 2034, 2039 and so on.
b) Balance 50% of State Assemblies + balance 50% of municipal bodies in 2032, 2037, 2042 and so on, somewhat like the US House of Representatives Elections. This would enable voters to reward or punish deliveries or absence of it midway, and at the same time bring in “Oneness” in the poll process.
c) The government does not have the numbers today for effecting Constitutional changes for the ONOE project. Better prospects of a consensus this way.
d) The anti-defection law should be made toothful and time-bound and there has to be a compulsory fresh by-election in case a legislator chooses to change his allegiance. This will minimise apprehensions of instability.
And before I conclude, seventy-six years ago, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar had remarked in a reply on the floor of the Constituent Assembly, “...A Federal Constitution means a division of sovereignty by no less a sanction than that of the law of the Constitution between the federal government and the States, with necessary consequences that any invasion by the federal government in the field assigned to the States and vice versa is a breach of the Constitution...” Let’s honour the spirit of our Constitution!
(Binayak Datta is a finance
professional)