Like the festivals across the year in India, the poll season currently is a year-long feature. There are polls, bypolls and then more polls… The poll fest has become a 365-day affair.
In order to be in a position to hold simultaneous polls, various issues must be taken into consideration such as reducing the cost of holding elections and limiting all elections to a single season. Currently, at any given time of the year, a poll is being held or planned or being conducted somewhere in the country and people in favour of the simultaneous polls argue that the Model Code of Conduct comes in the way of the government announcing welfare projects or policies for the beneficiaries.
Currently, elections to the assemblies in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha, and Sikkim are held along with Lok Sabha polls.
However, those who oppose the concept widely feel that simultaneous polls would benefit the nationally dominant party (or parties) hugely especially at the cost of regional players.
It must be noted that Assembly polls are due in five states in November and December, 2023 and these polls will be followed by the Lok Sabha between April and June in 2024. However, the recent moves by the government have thrown open the possibility of advancing the general elections and some state polls, which are scheduled after and also along with the Lok Sabha. Though Union minister Anurag Thakur on Sunday has ruled out plans for early polls.
Here it must be said that of the Lok Sabhas since 1952, many were dissolved ahead of schedule — like in 1971, 1980, 1984, 1991, 1998, 1999 and 2004. There would also be logistical issues, requiring about twice as many electronic voting machines and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail machines, which we shall be discussing in detail in this article.
While the nation, especially the political circles are spending anxious moments discussing the simultaneous polls issue, a flashback look would reveal that the simultaneous elections for state assemblies and the Lok Sabha is nothing new for India. The norm was on till 1967. However, the scenario changed when some legislative assemblies were dissolved prematurely in 1968 and 1969 and the Lok Sabha in 1970.
But keeping in sync with the matter, almost a decade later, in 1983, the Election Commission had proposed to reinstate the process of holding the simultaneous elections, but in its report, the EC had mentioned that the then government had decided against it. It may be recalled that the Law Commission report of 1999 also pushed for simultaneous elections. So, the matter was raked up time and again but somehow it lost steam.
Flashback: It may be recalled that the current push from the Centre for simultaneous polls is not a sudden thing. The BJP had mentioned about the same in its 2014 Lok Sabha manifesto. The party had said it would seek for a mechanism to hold the polls simultaneously.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not stop at that but kept pursuing the idea. Again in 2016, when PM Modi raised the issue, the next year, the Niti Aayog prepared a working paper on the proposal of the government.
Again in 2018, the Law Commission said at least ‘five Constitutional recommendations’ would be required to hold simultaneous elections.
In 2019, the then Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra Arora had expressed full confidence and said that the EC was fully prepared and capable of conducting simultaneous elections. However, Chandra added that the move required amendments to the statute and the endorsement of the Parliament.
Again in December 2022, the Law Commission sought the opinion of stakeholders including national political parties, the Election Commission of India, bureaucrats, academicians and experts on the proposal to hold simultaneous elections in the country.
Now let’s discuss the logistics issues in order to conduct simultaneous polls. For the world’s biggest democracy, the logistics challenges of holding simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and state assemblies is not only huge but mind-boggling.
If the country finally goes in for the model of a simultaneous election, the Election Commission will have an enormous asking rate and just to start explaining the logistics imagine the effort to arrange about 30 lakh EVMs and VVPAT machines, and deploying enormous number of central forces around the country — it will be a Himalayan task but certainly not impossible, according to several former Chief Election Commissioners (CECs).
Our subsequent Election Commissions have done wonders in the past in conducting the polls and in this context, the reforms pressed into service by the legendary TN Seshan can never be forgotten.
Last year, the then CEC Sushil Chandra Arora had said the Election Commission of India (ECI) was ‘fully geared up’ to hold simultaneous elections. However, the current CEC Rajiv Kumar refused to comment on the issue on Friday.
“The ECI has been recommending since 1982 that an amendment should be brought to bring those state assemblies that are out of sync with Lok Sabha back in sync. In 2015, we submitted a feasibility report to the government. It would require amendments to the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act. And the ECI would need more time and money to manufacture more EVMs and VVPATs. A total of about 30 lakh EVMs (control units) would be needed,” Former CEC O P Rawat was quoted in the Indian Express.
As per the Law Minister, who had informed the Parliament, as of March, the ECI had 13.06 lakh control units (CUs) and 17.77 lakh ballot units (BUs) of EVMs. Another 9.09 lakh CUs and 13.26 lakh BUs were under production, taking the total to 22.15 lakh CUs and 31.03 lakh BUs.
The Election Commission of India has over the years been mentioning what it would take to hold simultaneous polls. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice had noted in its 2015 report the ‘several difficulties’ pointed out by the ECI.
“The chief issue highlighted by them is that simultaneous conduct of elections would require large-scale purchase of Electronic Voting Machines and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail machines. For conducting simultaneous elections, the Commission expects that a total of Rs 9,284.15 crore will be needed for procurement of EVMs and VVPATs. The machines would also need to be replaced every 15 years which would again entail expenditure. Further, storing these machines would increase the warehousing cost,” the committee report said.
According to a reply in Parliament, between 2014 and 2019, the Centre gave states and Union Territories Rs 5,814.29 crore for holding elections.
However, most former election commissioners feel that simultaneous polls will save time, expenditure, and administrative work. There are certainly challenges, but they are not insurmountable. If the elections are held over a span of three-four months, the former ECs are confident that the machinery would be able to handle it.
(Writer is senior journalist and former Senior Associate Editor, O Heraldo)
