Table of Contents
Elections to Legislative Assembly & Lok Sabha at same time
Why in news
- April 2018 : Law Commission has released a white paper on Simultaneous Elections
- Parliamentary Committee on Law & Justice has argued that Elections to Legislative Assembly & Lok Sabha should take place at same time .
Historical Knowledge : After independence , first four elections were held at same time but after that it couldn’t be continued . This was mainly done by Indira Gandhi , who wanted to cut the wings of regional leaders so that she needn’t depend on them for central power
Points in favour of this
- Recommendation of Committees
- April 2018 : Law Commission has released a white paper on Simultaneous Elections. | 1999 : Law Commission Report recommended it
- 2015 : Parliamentary Committee on Law & Justice
- Political Reason :
- Frequent elections and implementation of Model Code of Conduct leads to policy paralysis and governance deficit impacting development in country
- Economic Reasons :
- Money & resources that are used on elections can be minimized & used on Social Welfare
- Social Reasons :
- Elections in India are polarizing events and promotes communalism , casteism etc . Hence, fewer elections are better
- Helpful in Internal & External Security :
- Concurrent polls would free central armed forces and manpower that is deployed at regular intervals for election duty so that they can be used better for their regular functions.
- Examples from other countries : held successfully in Sweden & South Africa
Points against this
- Against Basic Structure of Constitution : To implement this system , there would be need of fixed tenure system .Fixed tenure is against Basic Structure of Constitution
- Result in lower Accountability : In present system, same political party has to approach voters multiple times (atleast 3 times) in 5 years. It increases the accountability and answerability
- Against the federal principle : National parties are going to benefit as Voters in India are not mature enough to vote on central & state issues at same time
- There is no report to vouch that development in India is stopped due to frequent elections
Alternate Way
Former Chief Election Commissioner Qureshi’s suggestion : Center should provide more paramilitary forces in bigger states like UP, Bihar etc so that election can be conducted in 1 Phase only and reduce time when Model code of conduct is in place