One Nation, One Election bill could give ECI say over Assemblies' terms

In the current version of CAB, if a state's elections cannot be held with the LS, the EC will be empowered to declare the dates for those polls, effectively giving it final say on the Assembly's term

If and when it becomes law, the proposed 129th Constitution Amendment – popularly known as the ‘One Nation One Election’ law – which seeks to pave the way for simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies will bestow substantial powers upon the Election Commission of India (ECI). The Amendment bill has currently been referred to a joint committee of Parliament for further deliberations. 

 

By way to the amendment, the government, in its effort to ensure simultaneous polls for the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies, will effectively confer more powers on the ECI.  

 

For example, the bill states that the ECI shall ensure the conduct of simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies “notwithstanding anything in the Constitution or any law for the time being in force, and before the expiry of the full term of the House of the People” and it will be empowered to modify provisions, as may become necessary, to ensure this. This will give it wide-ranging leeway to make any changes to the electoral process as it deems fit to meet the stated goal of holding simultaneous elections.   

 

Further, it states that the ECI, if it is of the opinion that elections to any Legislative Assembly cannot be conducted along with that of the Lok Sabha, it may make a recommendation to the President to declare that the election to that Legislative Assembly may be conducted at a later date. In such a scenario, the ECI will, at the time of notifying the election to a Legislative Assembly under this provision, declare the date on which the full term of the Legislative Assembly shall come to an end, effectively given it a say in the term of the said Assembly. 

 

Since the framers of India’s Constitution didn’t envisage or provide for simultaneous elections, it was left to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to act within the constitutional framework to deal with the exigencies of any situation. Existing laws empower the ECI to hold elections a maximum of six months before the expiry of the term of the Lok Sabha or legislative assemblies. As former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa has pointed out, it gives the poll panel “certain flexibility in scheduling and bunching elections for efficient management”. 

 

The ECI is also empowered to enforce the Model Code of Conduct, although it only prohibits a specific category of public expenditure with the objective of denying the ruling party any unfair advantage by spending public resources as a vote-catching tool.