One nation, one election: Why Modi govt wants to go for simultaneous polls

Three out 10 registered voters still cannot cast their votes in Indian elections

In 2010, Csaba Nikolenyi, a Montreal-based professor at Concordia University studying Indian elections, published a paper in a publication of the Political Studies Association. Nikolenyi used the most basic of all formulas to calculate voter motivation, among others, and drew the conclusion that separate elections in India were preventing more people from participating in the democratic process.

The formula

Known as the Riker-Ordeshook model, the formula was as follows: pB+D > C. In the formula, ‘p’ is the probability that the act of the individual’s vote will decide the outcome of the election; ‘B’ is the benefit of the voter’s favoured candidate being elected; ‘D’ stands for any other benefit from voting, such as the sense of fulfilling a particular duty; and ‘c’ is the cost of voting.

After juxtaposing voter turnouts in Indian state and national elections held concurrently and separately with this and other formulas, Nikolenyi drew the hypothesis that voter turnout in national elections will be higher in those states where state elections are also conducted at the same time.

He concluded: Separate elections to sub-national and national legislatures constitute an important safeguard of the autonomy of sub-national units in a federation. Clearly, India always differed in this regard from the other major democratic federations in that it held concurrent elections at both levels for the first two decades after Independence. The decoupling of national and state electoral cycles ended this and contributed significantly to making India’s federalism more decentralised. Separate elections have facilitated the entry of state-based and regional parties into the sub-national, and eventually into the national, party system. This has also made electoral competition increasingly more responsive to the local needs and concerns of the population. However, separate elections have also resulted in weakening the incentives that voters face when deciding to participate in the electoral process. So, the Indian case study serves as a reminder that declining electoral turnout may well be the price to pay for increasing the level of political decentralisation via the adoption of non-concurrent national and sub-national electoral cycles.

Even though the 2014 Lok Sabha elections saw the highest voter turnout since independence, Election Commission of India figures show that they are just marginally higher than the levels witnessed in 1967 – the last time all state and parliamentary elections were held in conjunction. While the number of registered voters has increased four times since 1967, the Election Commission of India has managed to enhance voter turnouts by around 5 per cent. This means that of almost 600 million additional voters added over the years, just about 30 million have turned up to cast their vote – abysmal by standards of certain democracies like the UK and Canada. There were many years in between, where voter turnouts in national elections plummeted below 60 per cent. Nikolneyi’s paper offers useful insights into how simultaneous elections have boosted voter turnouts in the past.

How ‘one nation one election’ formula helps

In 1977, Kerala went to polls along with the rest of the country. The national elections that saw the ouster of the Indira Gandhi-led government saw voter turnouts in Kerala increasing by as much as 20 per cent as compared to elections that were held separately.

Even if the higher turnouts in states like Kerala can be attributed to the ground mobilisation of communist parties, there are other examples that show that a ‘one nation one election’ formula encourages more people to cast their vote. In 1999, when bigger states like Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh went to the polls along with the rest of the country, voter turnouts increased by 11.5 per cent compared to elections which were held separately in the past.

Nikolneyi’s calculations show that holding concurrent elections has profound positive impact on voter turnouts in India’s northeastern states. Between 1971 and 2004, voter turnouts in Arunanchal Pradesh and Assam were 21 per cent and 17 per cent higher when state elections were held along with national elections. In Manipur and Meghalaya, voter turnouts during the same period increased by almost 20 per cent when simultaneous elections were held. In Sikkim, the rise in voter turnout on this account was 16 per cent. Clearly, not only does the ‘one nation one election’ phenomenon lead to greater voter participation in mainstream India, but it also encourages more people to come out to vote in the geographically remote areas like India’s northeastern region.

The need for simultaneous elections

Despite the low levels of voter turnout over the years, both NITI Aayog and the Parliamentary standing committee that examined the issue of simultaneous elections failed to even acknowledge that India needs to make more people come out and vote. The NITI Aayog report authored by Bibek Debroy and Kishore Desai advocates simultaneous elections on two premises, among other things – disruption in governance due to the imposition of model code of conduct due to frequent elections, and curtailing exorbitant expenses borne in conducting repeated elections.

The Election Commission of India, while making its submissions before the Parliamentary standing committee examining the issue of simultaneous elections said that it would cost Rs 45 billion to hold a single cycle of elections to the Lok Sabha and all state Assemblies in India. The 2014 Lok Sabha elections alone cost Rs 39 billion. Reports suggest the recently held Gujarat elections cost Rs 3 billion. By the look of it, this alone does not look like a strong justification to hold simultaneous elections. The Narendra Modi administration has said in the past that it saved Rs 6,250 on every fake ration card holder it eliminated after Aadhar-based verification followed by direct cash transfers into bank accounts. This, according to the government, would save the country Rs 100 billion every year. If the Election Commission of India’s election expense figures are anything to go by, these annual savings could fund two rounds of both state and national elections.

The NITI Aayog estimates that with various elections, the model code of conduct would be in place for almost four months every year till 2021. The report concludes: “This means, going forward, development projects and programmes of state governments going to the polls and of Union government in those states may potentially get hit every year and that too for about one-third of the entire time available for implementing such projects and programmes. Such a situation is completely undesirable and needs serious deliberations and appropriate corrective measures.”

While it is true that respective governments are restricted from certain practices, the NITI Aayog seems to have ignored the fact that political parties and the governments they control are aware of election timings much before the Election Commission of India officially announces. Besides, the model code of conduct that is in operation for roughly two months doesn’t explicitly lead to either policy paralysis or a governance meltdown, the NITI Aayog seems to suggest. The model code of conduct prohibits ministers or authorities from “laying foundation stones for new projects, announcing financial grants, making promises for the construction of roads or providing drinking water facilities and making ad-hoc appointments to government positions or public bodies that may influence voter behaviour”.

While most financial grants are sanctioned in Union and state budgets, no well-meaning government would wait until elections are around the corner to flag off important development projects or provide basic civic amenities like metalled roads and drinking water to its citizens.

While the NITI Aayog delved into administrative aspects of simultaneous elections, the Parliamentary standing committee had to deal with the thornier political and logistical implications of such a move. “There was opposition from some parties and we considered their views while giving recommendations. Till 1967, elections were held simultaneously. When regional parties sprang up, there was a lot of defection. It was only because Rajiv Gandhi enacted the anti-defection law in 1985 that we could curtail such malpractices. Now India is a much more stable and mature democracy. The time is ripe for holding simultaneous national and state elections in India,” E M Sudarsana Natchiappan, Congress MP and chairman of the Parliamentary standing committee, told Business Standard.

Opposition to the idea of simultaneous polls

The principal opposition seems to have come from regional and smaller parties. The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress rejected the idea outright comparing it to the proclamation of Emergency in the country. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) termed the idea “unscientific and impracticable”. Other regional outfits like the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party and Asasuddin Owiasi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen have also rejected the idea.

The opposition of such regional parties is rooted in fears that they might disappear from the voters’ memory if national and state elections were held together. “It is only when national parties fail to address regional issues that state parties spring up. Till the time national parties fail to address regional issues, state parties do no need to worry. The BJP is a perfect example. Nobody cares for the party in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh or Telangana because it is not bothered with local issues in these states. Or take the case of Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav. They were voted out in Uttar Pradesh because the BJP was able to champion state-specific issues in a much better way,” added Natchiappan.

While it might be hard to allay political fears, ushering in simultaneous elections comes with its own set of logistical challenges. The trickiest part would be deciding which state government’s tenure needs to be cut short or extended to make them coincide with Parliamentary elections.

For instance, the Parliamentary standing committee considered scenarios if some state elections were to be held along with the national elections in June 2019. It averred that Assemblies of some states like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, whose terms are ending in January 2019 could be extended by almost three months. Meanwhile, others like Jharkhand and Delhi, whose terms are expiring in the first two months of 2020 would need to be curtailed by as much as six months – a scenario that wouldn’t cut much ice with the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government in the national capital.

Even if simultaneous elections were to be held in 2023 with the Parliamentary polls, the states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where the Bharatiya Janata Party has little influence, could pose big challenges to the idea. The Parliamentary committee had evolved a scenario for these states in the event concurrent polls were to be held in June 2019. With their terms ending in 2016, legislative elections in these states were to be held in two phases. The first phase was to be held in November 2016 and the second along with the national elections was to be conducted in June 2019.

The solutions

The Election Commission of India also seemed enthusiastic about the idea while making its submissions before the committee. It suggested futuristic solutions to problems in an era when concurrent elections in India become a reality. To address the problem of pre-mature dissolution of legislative Assemblies or Parliament, India’s election body suggested that no-confidence motions should be made more constructive. Whenever a government is forced to step down after failing a no-confidence motion, the Parliament or the state legislature at the same time should also vote on a ‘confidence motion’ in “favour of a government to be headed by an individual as the future prime minister.” It suggested that voting on both these motions should be done at the same time.

While there have been extensive public consultations on the matter, the big question is when India will be ready to go back to the Nehruvian era of concurrent national and state elections in the age of Modi? Natchiappan says: “I personally believe the synchronisation of elections will take at least 20 years. But if all political parties come to a mutual understanding, this can be achieved within a decade.”