One nation, one election: ECI to retain discretionary powers to defer assembly polls

Currently, the ECI can conduct elections under Article 324 of the Constitution and seek an extension to complete elections through section 153 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

The inclusion of these powers in the Constitution would make it difficult to amend them in the future, as constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha to pass, said P.D.T. Achary, former secretary general of the Lok Sabha.

The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024, will allow simultaneous elections for the lower house of Parliament, state assemblies, and local bodies. However, the ECI may, at its discretion, write to the President to defer state elections if it deems fit, showed the draft ‘one nation, one election’ bill, reviewed by Mint.

According to Achary, the amendment marks another major shift from the existing procedure by asking the ECI to write to the President to defer assembly elections, as the governor usually makes the final decision.

To be sure, the Representation of the People Act and Article 324 are silent on whether the ECI should write to the governor or President. However, the Supreme Court has stated that when the ECI proposes a directive to the government, it must get the government’s assent before implementing that directive.

Meanwhile, even if the ECI decides to defer state elections, the state government’s term will end on the same day as the Lok Sabha. And if either the Lok Sabha or the state assembly is dissolved before its term ends, then the new government would only rule for the remaining part of the five-year term, the draft said.

An emailed query to the Prime Minister’s Office, Cabinet Secretariat, ECI, and the ministry of law and justice did not elicit a response till press time.

Currently, the ECI is responsible for conducting Lok Sabha and state assembly elections, while state election commissions conduct local-body elections.

The ECI deferred parliamentary elections for three weeks following the assassination of erstwhile prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. The latest, it deferred 2020 elections for 18 Rajya Sabha seats due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Why one nation, one election?

The Centre’s plan to conduct simultaneous polls is based on the work of a high-level committee chaired by former president Ram Nath Kovind, which encouraged the idea of allowing the ECI powers to defer state polls by proposing a constitutional amendment. 

The Kovind committee greenlit the policy change because scattered elections drain the public purse and create policy paralysis.

“Elections, by their very nature, lead to the incurring of substantial cost in terms of manpower involvement, infrastructure, and logistics. The holding of elections for representative bodies at different levels aggravates pressure on finances, straining the resources of the exchequer,” said the panel’s report.

“Holding simultaneous elections presents an opportunity to rationalize such avoidable expenditures and channel scarce resources for developmental activities. Aligning the timelines for national- and state-level elections will also boost the scale and scope of the entire economy,” the report added.

The budgetary allocation for the ECI and conducting elections is provided as a separate grant under the demands for grants of the ministry of law and justice. As per the demand for grants for 2024-25, the ECI asked for ₹1,000 crore, stating it was the cost of holding the Lok Sabha and state assembly elections simultaneously.

The ECI stated that the total cost of elections, including presidential and vice-presidential polls, would be a little over ₹2,410 crore.

To be clear, simultaneous polls will allow voters to cast their ballots to elect members for all tiers of government on a single day.

The Kovind panel report, however, makes a minor tweak to this idea. While the central and state elections may be held on the same day, the third-tier elections, such as municipal or panchayat polls, could be conducted within a hundred days of the Lok Sabha and assembly elections.

Experts, meanwhile, don’t expect the bill to go through. “It is unlikely that the present government will be able to pass this constitutional amendment in the present Lok Sabha, as it requires 362 votes to pass, while the ruling coalition, at the moment, has only 292 votes in its favour,” Achary told Mint.

This is not the first time India has planned simultaneous polls. Till 1967, the country held central and state elections together. Unstable state governments led to the early dissolution of assemblies, thereby breaking the cycle and scattering polls throughout the year.

To avoid history repeating itself, the draft bill proposes that the new government rules only till the end of the five-year term if either the Lok Sabha or a state assembly dissolves early to ensure fresh elections every five years.

The ‘one nation, one election’ will kick in after the President of India makes a public notification on the date of the first sitting of the Lok Sabha after fresh polls to implement the policy change, which means the plan can’t be implemented before the 2034 election cycle.