Simultaneous polls: Motives questioned
Over a period of time, the parliamentary and assembly elections have followed their own schedule with almost every year seeing one or two contests at the provincial level. The media hype over them is further accentuated by the fact that even municipal and
A possible explanation for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) insistence on switching to simultaneous parliamentary and assembly polls is the belief that its overarching presence during the elections will tilt the scales in its favour. Not surprisingly, a spokesman even wanted local body elections to be included in the “one nation, one poll” idea.
With its huge war chest and the oratorical prowess of star campaigners like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, the BJP expects that it will reduce the other parties to insignificance during the contests as they lack adequate funds as well as effective speakers.
The BJP also presumably hopes that its nationalist / jingoistic pitch will put in the shade the humdrum issues of the other parties such as caste and discontent about broken roads, power shortage and choked drains. Such calculations may well be the BJP’s “hidden agenda” of which its rivals are scared. To them, the separation of the parliamentary and assembly polls from 1960 onwards was a process in keeping with India’s rumbustious political scene and federal ambience, which militates against an attempt to put it into a straitjacket.
The first breach between the two sets of elections occurred in the wake of the dismissal of India’s first Communist government in Kerala in 1959. The dismissal was followed by an assembly election in 1960 which led to a non-Communist government. The disconnection between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha (state assembly) elections gathered pace from 1967 onwards as the Congress began losing its prominence and various other parties, including the communists, the socialists, the Jan Sangh (the BJP’s earlier avatar) and the DMK came into power from West Bengal to Tamil Nadu. It will be foolhardy now to try to put the electoral genie back into bottle since the legislative terms of a number of state assemblies have gone out of sync with the parliamentary polls. In order to bring them in line, it will require constitutional amendments to either curtail the terms of some state assembles or extend them by a year or two.
It is obvious that such “engineering” to ensure that one size fits all can have unforeseen political consequences in a country where party loyalties can be fickle. It is common practice as a result to herd the susceptible MLAs (state lawmakers) in posh holiday resorts by their party bosses in order to keep them away from poachers of the rival parties. It is anybody’s guess what will happen once word gets around among the poachers and potential defectors that a state government’s tenure will be reduced or extended. It will not be only the MLAs who will be affected by a fixed electoral calendar. What if the central government falls because of a no-confidence motion?
The German practice of a simultaneous confidence motion favouring an alternative government can only be a temporary solution in an atmosphere of shifting party loyalties prevalent in India. And what if an alternative cannot be formed, or is shortlived, while its rival’s lack of popularity is palpable? The best solution in that case is a fresh election. But that will make the election calendar go haywire all over again.
Over a period of time, the parliamentary and assembly elections have followed their own schedule with almost every year seeing one or two contests at the provincial level. The media hype over them is further accentuated by the fact that even municipal and student union elections are seen as indicators of the prevailing political mood. There is thus prevalence of a festive democratic atmosphere throughout the country at practically all times, which is unlike anywhere else.
True, there is a grain of truth in the BJP’s argument that a nation’s involvement in a perpetual election mode can detract from dedicated governance. Moreover, the constant movement of the central police and paramilitary forces from one pollbound state to another because of the propensity for violence in some areas entails considerable expenditure.
Even then, before undertaking a major surgery, one has to be sure that the remedy does not prove to be worse than the disease, especially when it is uncertain whether elections at different times can at all be regarded as a disease. Besides, fiddling with a system when there is no urgent need can arouse suspicions about the motive of the proposers, some of whose stalwarts, as well as its social-media army of bloggers and trolls, have not been too comfortable with the Westminster model.