BY Syed Khalique Ahmed
NEW DELHI: What is the intention of the BJP, and particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi behind the ‘one nation, one election’ plan? And what is its necessity? Is it intended to strengthen democracy or will it weaken democracy? These are among various questions that are being raised by the opposition leaders, political analysts, academicians, and political and social activists.
Everyone keeping track of BJP’s politics knows that this was one of the promises made in BJP’s election manifesto in 2014. So, it is not some new idea that the BJP-led Modi government came out all of a sudden and is now making a strong bid for its implementation. It is part of a larger gameplan of the RSS-parivar that wants to strengthen its political grip so that its rule continues for at least 50 years as boasted by PM Narendra Modi in one of his speeches some five years ago.
The recommendation for the simultaneous elections was made by a committee headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind. He submitted the recommendation to President Droupadi Murmu in March this year. And now the Union Cabinet has approved it.
But the recommendations cannot be implemented unless it is passed in both houses of Parliament: Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha where the BJP lacks a majority on its own. It will have to depend on the crutches of Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP) Chandrababu Naidu and Janata Dal (U) Nitish Kumar as also Lok Janshakti Party’s (Ram Bilas) leader Chirag Paswan. While Chirag Paswan is not likely to oppose the BJP in this endeavour, the only hope is from TDP and JDU. However, political analysts say that even Nitish Kumar is unlikely to oppose it given the political circumstances around him. Another reason given for Nitish not opposing the plan is that Bihar stands to gain if the new political formula is implemented.
But almost all opposition parties like the Congress, Trinamool Congress, and others have vociferously opposed it, saying it violates federal principles and will weaken democracy. Under the simultaneous elections, elections for Lok Sabha, state assemblies, and all local bodies will be held together. Analysts say that such a scenario is not good for the survival and growth of democracy.
According to analysts, simultaneous polls will also weaken the people’s power. Under the existing electoral system, parliamentary elections, assembly elections, and local bodies elections are held separately. This provides an opportunity to take an account of the party in power. If a party that is in power at the Centre does not perform well or performs poorly, people have the chance to teach a lesson to them in assembly and local body elections and vote to power another party. The party in power fears taking any unpopular step like raising prices because they fear the people will take revenge on them in the next elections, for example, assembly elections or local body elections. This ensures that political parties listen to the voice of the people and remain in touch with the people.
But in simultaneous elections, the elected leaders may not turn up for the next four and half years after getting elected. In such a situation, the party in power can formulate the state policies and make decisions on its whims and fancies without bothering about public reaction. Since the next elections will be held after a gap of five years, the ruling party may announce some small sop just a few months before the elections to keep the public in good humour. Since people’s memory is very short, they may not remember the past mistakes and wrong policies the government designed four years ago. This all adds up to weakening the power of people under the ‘one nation, one election’ system. This will amount to the hijacking of democracy.
However, is it feasible to hold elections – parliamentary, assembly and local bodies – in all 28 states and eight union territories simultaneously? When the election commission is not able to hold simultaneous elections in four states – J&K, Maharashtra, Haryana, and Jharkhand –how can it be possible to hold elections all across the country under simultaneous polls particularly when large contingents of security personnel have to be deployed to ensure free and fair polls?
PM Modi had announced the proposal for simultaneous elections in his speech on August 15 this year. The very next day, the elections were announced for only four states – Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, and J&K. Why did he not announce elections for all the remaining states? Did he fear that his party may lose in most of the states and it would further humiliate him and the BJP that secured only 240 seats in Lok Sabha polls though Modi and his party had claimed to win more than 400 seats?
But for simultaneous elections, changes would be required to be made in the Constitution. The first delimitation of Parliamentary seats was carried out in 1952 based on the 1951 Census and the last one in 1973 based on the 1971 Census when the population was 36.1 crores and 54.8 crore, respectively. The Lok Sabha seats fixed were 494 in 1952 and raised to 543 in 1973. This means each constituency had an average population of 7.3 lakh in 193 and 10.1 lakh in 1973. But seats were not increased after 1973 though the population has almost trebled since then.
According to political observers, the BJP wants to increase the number of Lok Sabha seats by implementing the ‘one nation, one election’ plan just to continue its political domination. As the population has exponentially increased since then and has now crossed 140 crores, the number of parliamentary seats will increase to 1272 – 888 in Lok Sabha and 384 in Rajya Sabha.
As the South Indian states’ population has registered proportionately low growth during the last few decades compared with the North Indian states of UP, Bihar, Madhya, and Rajasthan, the number of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha seats in South Indian states will go down from the existing strength while it will increase in Hindi-speaking states.
According to a study by Carnegie Endowment, if the number of Lok Sabha seats is increased to 848 based on the projected population in 2026, the total number of increase in seats will be 150 (63 in UP, 39 in Bihar, 25 in Rajasthan, and 23 in Madhya Pradesh) in Hindi belt. The increase in the total number of seats in South India will be merely 35(TN 10, Andhra Pradesh plus Telangana 12, Karnataka 13, and Kerala zero). Smaller states like Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand will also be at a disadvantage compared to other North Indian states.
BJP draws much of its strength from the North Indian States. Based on this, it would not be wrong to call it a North Indian political party. Despite strong efforts to penetrate the South by using its communalization programme, the BJP has not succeeded. South Indians have strongly resisted its bid to spread its tentacles in South India. Political experts say that the BJP thinks that it can retain power and continue to rule over India by increasing the number of Lok Sabha seats in the Hindi-speaking belt where it dominates. Will the BJP succeed in this design? Will South Indian political leaders allow this to happen? What will happen in India if the delimitation exercise based on the projected population in 2026 is carried out and South Indian states are allotted proportionately less number of seats?
Carnegie Endowment has presented another scenario. If the number of seats is retained at 543 and reorganized among the states based on their projected population in 2026, UP, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh will gain 21 seats while Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh plus Telangana and Tamil Nadu will lose 26 seats. Punjab, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh would also lose one seat each. This scenario also goes against the South Indian states and favours North India. Will it not lead to bad blood between the two regions? PM Modi and BJP must reflect on it before jumping on to the exercise of ‘one nation, one election’ for political gains for the BJP.
To ensure that South Indians don’t feel disenchanted, there must be some way to ensure that there is proportionate growth of seats in all regions, without putting any state at a disadvantage. This will be in national interest.
