Electoral institutions are considered a principal explanatory phenomenon for a wide range of political phenomenon. Representative democracy is imperfect and continuous public participation through elections provides a system of communication to cure these imperfections in representative democracy. Current electoral system of multiple elections in India provides political diversity which is essential to address the social diversity of India. The Supreme Court, in the Keshvanand Bharti case[1] and the S.R Bommai case[2], has laid down that the federalism is the basic structure of the constitution.

The first elections to the Loksabha and all State Legislative Assemblies were held simultaneously in 1951-52. The practice continued in the next three elections held after that till 1967, but got disrupted post 1967 due to premature dissolution of some Legislative Assemblies. Thereafter, due to political instability across various states and the Loksabha, it became impossible to hold simultaneous elections.[3] However, the electoral system that lasted till 1967 from the adoption of the constitution was not a planned electoral process but continued because the power was concentrated to a few political parties. Therefore, the Simultaneous elections to parliament and state legislatures till 1967 can be attributed more to the dominance of a single party throughout the nation and less to a well-organized plan by the election commission to hold simultaneous elections.

Article 83(2) of the Indian Constitution provides that the House of the people shall continue for five years form the date of its first meeting.[4] A similar provision under article 172(1) provides for five year tenure from the date of its first meeting for the state governments. For the government to conduct Simultaneous elections, tenure of the State Legislative assemblies has to be either curtailed or extended which is not provided under the current provisions in normal circumstances. Article 85(2)(b) of the Indian Constitution grants the power to dissolve the Loksabha to the president.[5] A similar provision for dissolution of state legislative assemblies by the governor is mentioned under Article 174 (2)(b). In the backdrop of the existing provisions in the constitution, it is not possible to conduct simultaneous elections. The exercise will require extensive amendments to articles 83, 174 and 356 of the Indian Constitution.[6] These amendments can upset the balance of power between the state and the union in the favour of the union. Even if some of the articles are amended, practical problems will still arise. There is no country in the world as big and diverse as India that has managed to hold and sustain simultaneous elections to Federal and Provincial Legislatures. South Africa and Sweden still hold simultaneous elections to national and provincial legislatures.[7] The electoral system in these countries is based on party-list proportional representation. we cannot expect such political stability in a country like India and it will not be possible to provide for all the situations and eventualities and still protect the spirit of democracy.

The very idea of simultaneous elections undermines the parliamentary system itself. It is not feasible to conduct simultaneous elections in Westminster model for long term. One of the basic features of the parliamentary system is that it offers the prerogative of dissolution of legislature to the executive, which will end if the term of the central and state legislatures is fixed through amendment of the constitution. The introduction of Simultaneous elections to the central and the state legislature will make article 356 a rule rather than an exception. It would be against the wishes of our constitutional forefathers. B.R. Ambedkar, chairman of Drafting Committee of the Constitution, discussed in reference to article 356, “Such Articles will never be called into operation and they would remain a dead letter.”[8] Simultaneous elections will give an unprecedented power to the president who acts on the aid and advice of the prime minister and council of ministers. This system would obviously favour the national parties and marginalize the state parties in the political scenario.. A state government during the President’s rule is virtually under the direction and control of the union government. In practice, the executive authority is delegated by the President to the Governor. The governor functions on the aid and advice of his advisors who are mostly bureaucrats.[9] This is simply surpassing the principles of democracy because neither the Governor nor his advisors are elected by the people and as such they are not the representative of the will of people.

Democracy is not just about ensuring proper election to the Central and State legislatures. Democracy in its real sense is about ensuring accountability to the people. Frequent elections also evaluate the representatives and the party to which the representative belong. One of the major consequences of simultaneous elections is that the public participation is vastly diminished. Simultaneous elections will also unduly benefit the national parties as most conversation at the time of synchronous elections will be about the issues that plague the nation at large. In these campaigns, local issues that are present in the most immediate environment will be lost. National parties will always have a better say in the elections and it will distract the attention of people from the most immediate issues. The national elections and the welfare of the nation at large will hit the nationalist sentiments in every citizen. Therefore, national issues will seize most of the people imagination and media coverage. This will divert local issues from peoples’ attention and the election will solely be based on national interests. Staggered elections do not only help in representing both local and national issues, but it also provides a way to keep a check on the work of the government and express the displeasure of people to the works of the government.[10] Multiple elections also to some extent communicates the pulse of the nation to the ruling parties.

According to a research by the IDFC institute, voters get confused between national and local issues and end up voting the same party for both the legislatures. There is 77% chance that voters chose the same political party for centre and state during simultaneous elections.[11]  However, the same data provides that when elections were held beyond six months of the national elections, the chances of voters voting for the same party dropped to 48%. These data mean that holding simultaneous elections may influence voter behaviour in a manner that voters would ignore the immediate local issues and end up voting on national issues. Effectively, this will result in larger national parties winning both State and Lok Sabha elections thereby marginalizing regional parties which often represent the interests of local social and economic groups. This will have a debilitating effect on the federal principles of our constitution.

Lastly, the only argument in favour of simultaneous elections that has some ground is of expenses. But, we need to ponder over the fact that the Constitution makers did not mention “simultaneous elections” in the constitution. They presumably held the view that some costs are indispensable and essential in running an efficient democratic system. In a country as diverse and large as India, elections are bound to be expensive. These election costs are much easier to endure than the degradation of democratic and constitutional principles. Any proposition favours simultaneous elections to the Central and state assemblies lacks imagination, practicality and profound knowledge of the federal spirit of the constitution.

References

[1] Keshvanand Bharti v. Union of India, (1973) 4 SCC 225

[2] S.R. Bommai v. Uniion of India, 1994 AIR 1918

[3] Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, Seventy-Ninth Report, Feasibility of Holding Simultaneous Elections to the House of People (Lok Sabha) and State Legislative Assemblies, (2015), available at http://164.100.47.5/newcommittee/reports/EnglishCommittees/Committee%20on%20Personnel,%20PublicGrievances,%20Law%20and%20Justice/79.pdf

[4] Article 83, The Constitution of India, 1950.

[5] Article 85(b), The Constitution of India, 1950.

[6] Artcle 356, The  Constitution of India, 1950.

[7] Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, Seventy-Ninth Report, Feasibility of Holding Simultaneous Elections to the House of People (Lok Sabha) and State Legislative Assemblies, (2015), available at http://164.100.47.5/newcommittee/reports/EnglishCommittees/Committee%20on%20Personnel,%20PublicGrievances,%20Law%20and%20Justice/79.pdf

[8] Ambedkar, B. R. (1949), Constituent Assembly Debates, vol. IX, no. 5, p. 177(4 August, 1949).

[9] Singhvi, G.C. (2000), “Our Representative Democracy: Some Incompatible Practices,” Indian Journal of Public Administration, vol. XLVI, no. I, New Delhi, p.ll6., (January-March, 2000).

[10] Meghnad Desai, Out of My Mind: All together now, Indian Express (February 02, 2018), available at http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/out-of-my-mind-all-together-now-simultaneous-elections-lok-sabha-state-assembly-polls-5050501/

[11] Praveen Chakravarty, Different vote for State and Centre, (December 03, 2015), Livemint, available at https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/O3hCQggLS2ASxW5zz8fJ6K/Different-vote-for-state-and-centre.html