Simultaneous polls: more questions than answers
Monday, April 23, 2018 IST
The Law Commission has backed the idea of conducting simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies and put out a working paper in the public domain to seek opinion of all stakeholders. Though there is little doubt that the current system of cyclic elections in India needs course correction, simultaneous polls are a quick fix solution which will lead to new problems. One of the recommendations is to hold assembly polls in phases to synchronise with 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The question is will various state governments endorse this view of finishing their terms early? Even if BJP ruled states agree there are others like West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu where elections were held in 2016 and Punjab in 2017, which are unlikely to support the move.
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The other contentious issue is the recommendation that the leader of the largest party be ‘elected’ PM or CM by the Lok Sabha and assembly respectively. There are many precedents in the past when the single largest party has not formed the government because of other parties coming together. Goa and Manipur are the most recent examples in 2017 while Lok Sabha witnessed a similar pattern in 1989 and 1996. For example, if the Karnataka elections throw up a hung assembly in a three-way contest between BJP, Congress and JDS, should the leader of the single largest party be automatically made CM even if the other two parties have the required numbers to gain simple majority in the assembly?
The UP assembly election was spread over a month in five phases due to its sheer size last year. Imagine the manpower required to conduct simultaneous polls across the country in 29 states and seven Union Territories. We witnessed how Himachal Pradesh went to polls on November 9 but had to wait for nearly 40 days before the results were announced on December 18 last year. Going by current recommendations of the Law Commission, holding simultaneous polls could lead to policy paralysis in more states having to wait long between voting and counting as the latter will have to be necessarily done on one day.
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