‘One Nation, One Election’ Ensures Better Governance

“No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come”, wrote French novelist Victor Hugo in his magnum opus ‘Les Miserables’ way back in 1859 pointing at the power of ideas. One Nation, One Election (ONOE) put forward by the NDA government is an important proposal, and will be India’s biggest electoral reform once it gets parliament’s nod. A high level committee led by former President of India Ram Nath Kovind was constituted by the central government to submit a report on ONOE. After consulting with the opposition leaders, regional parties and experts, the committee has submitted its report, pitching a strong case for simultaneous elections. 

Considering the pace at which India is growing, simultaneous elections are a necessity to provide better governance to its citizens. Currently, there are elections throughout the year and multiple issues are associated with it. The cost to conduct elections is skyrocketing elections after elections. Reports suggest that the election expenditure for 2019 Lok Sabha elections stood at Rs 60,000 crore while for 2024 LS elections the expenditure was around Rs 1.35 lakh crore. The figures are different for various assembly elections. The total expense can be slashed by a huge number if both parliament and assembly elections are held together. Not just the government,  but political parties can also cut their expenditure during election campaigns due to this. 

In order to ensure free and fair elections and to eliminate the intervention from the government, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announces ‘model code of conduct’ before the polls. During this period, the government is not allowed to announce any new schemes for the people nor can they carry out any new development initiatives. The entire nation goes through this during the parliament elections and again the ‘model code of conduct’ will be enforced during the state elections. Here, states are losing out in terms of development. ONOE can put a full stop to this and make sure that the valuable time of the state governments are not lost. 

Every election needs a lot of logistical support. It involves setting of polling stations, security arrangements and micro management. Routine elections add to administrative paralysis, considering that the elections are monitored by government employees. When a government employee is allotted election work, that individual is relieved of his official duties and is focused only on the respective election. This eventually slows down the governance. Simultaneous elections can ensure that this administrative paralysis is significantly reduced.

Continuous elections create a politically charged environment throughout the year. This eventually results in political parties playing for the gallery and scoring political points for the next state assembly elections. Once ONOE gets approval, Political parties can focus on providing good governance to the domiciles of the states where they are in power rather than thinking about their next political moves in some other states. 

Another important aspect of ONOE is the presence of a common electoral roll. Currently, the ECI supervises parliament and assembly elections while the State Election Commissions conduct local body elections. Both these bodies have their own electoral rolls. This means that a voter who voted in the assembly election may not be included in the electoral roll for local body election. A single electoral roll for all the polls reduces redundancy and duplication of names. The Ram Nath Kovind committee has also suggested conducting local body elections within 100 days of elections to parliament and state assembly. 

The critics of ONOE argue that the national issues will overlap regional issues when the state assembly elections are conducted along with the parliamentary elections. This argument is not valid because we can see from the current trend that the voters vote differently in different elections. For example, during the Lok Sabha elections of 2024, the Maha Vikas Aghadi secured more seats in Maharashtra. But in the assembly polls, which happened merely six months after the general elections, the Mahayuti alliance won 4/5 of the total seats. Assuming that the voters will get confused if simultaneous elections take place is mere imagination and it underestimates the intellect of our fellow countrymen. Also, it will be more convenient for the citizens to vote when both the parliament and state elections are held on a single day. This will eventually increase the voter turnout.

Political parties opposing ONOE ignore the fact that India had simultaneous elections from 1952 to 1967. Only after that the schedule got disrupted due to multiple political situations that prevailed over various states. When the current union government is trying to make things in order, these political parties should be ideally supporting  them rather than opposing it just because it is proposed by a different party. 

At the time of Indian independence, many western intellectuals predicted impending Balkanisation of India and the collapse of our democracy. India is the only nation in the region with an active democracy which was never disrupted by a military coup or an organised collapse of the government. The government of India intends to implement ONOE by 2029 after the delimitation exercise in 2026. Today, India is the world’s largest democracy with around 97 crore eligible voters. ONOE is a progressive idea which will ensure stability in governance and make our democratic setup more vibrant.