With the Union government led by a star campaigner who can single-handedly win hearts and votes, the rest of India’s political landscape is understandably apprehensive about their fate if elections to state legislatures are held along with the Lok Sabha polls. But at the same time, the call is getting louder. The president urged us to debate its feasibility. The Election Commission and former commissioners are reportedly championing it.
Lets be clear. There’s surely a better way to keep democracy alive than have elections in some part of the country or the other every few months. It certainly happens only in India. That said, the way the debate is being framed today will only lead to a consolidation of power at the Centre. But people who object to simultaneous elections are falling into the trap of using arguments that are specious at best.
The first objection doing the rounds takes its roots in a report from IDFC Institute, which compiled data from 1999 to 2014 to show that when elections to state legislatures and the Lok Sabha were held simultaneously, people tended to cast votes for the same party in both polls. However, the data that was used was inherently restricted to the few states that do hold elections simultaneously and does not stand up to scrutiny.
For example, in Odisha, people voted for the same party in 1999, even when the Assembly elections and Lok Sabha polls were not held simultaneously. Ditto for Sikkim which consistently voted the Sikkim Democratic Front to its only Lok Sabha seat as well as the state legislature. Similarly, Andhra Pradesh has not had the same high correlation each time. When the electorate was faced with a clear choice—Congress’ Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in 2004 and 2009, and anti-incumbency in 2014, it voted similarly. But not so much in 1999. (This is not to argue that the hypothesis of the study is wrong: only that it is not borne out by the evidence available).
Another argument is that elections typically give a leg-up to the economy. Factually, that is correct. But there are surely other ways to prop up the economy—ways that don’t involve the deployment of unaccounted money and the doles that essentially subvert the sanctity of the election.
On the other hand, among the fans of simultaneous elections, one hears that elections were simultaneous till 1967. Incorrect. In Kerala, the Communist government was dismissed by the Centre in 1959, and thereafter, Kerala held its state elections in 1960 and 1965. It just so happened that most other states were ruled by strong Congress governments at that time, so the question of intra-term elections rarely arose.
Similarly, the argument that frequent elections are distracting from the business of governance should be thrown out of the window.
The prime minister and his cabinet have a full-time job on hand. They should not be campaigning in state elections where they don’t ever plan to participate in governance.
That said the fact also remains that simultaneous elections (on a sustained basis) are simply not possible under the present Constitutional framework. The objections arise on two accounts: India’s legislative arrangement allows a majority of legislators to vote out a government at any point, and if a substitute government cannot be voted in, the state must necessarily go back to the people for a new mandate. More seriously, the Centre has the power to dismiss a state government by recommending President’s Rule. This tendency has been curbed to an extent by the S R Bommai judgment of the Supreme Court, but that doesn’t mean that successive governments haven’t tried their hand.
The response to these, in the form of a report by the Niti Aayog (which in turn improves upon the recommendations of the 170th Law Commission report and a report by a Parliamentary Standing Committee) suggests that for a no-confidence motion, to be valid, it should necessarily be accompanied by a motion reposing confidence in an alternate government. It goes on to suggest an elaborate (but not necessarily better) formula whereby a mid-term election can be held and states will go into elections at the half-way point of the five-year cycle. Until the elections, President’s Rule will prevail.
And therein lies the rub. President’s Rule (either at the Centre or in states) simply means rule of the incumbent Central government by proxy. This will in turn put a higher premium on government formation at the Centre in the first place. The first party to be invited to form the government is usually the largest party in the Lok Sabha; this in effect obliterates the requirement for a simple majority in the House, and the fight would be to become the largest party in the Lok Sabha. Horse-trading might take unprecedented contours. The necessity of a confidence motion also similarly plays into the hands of the incumbent government, which then gets a disproportionate sway over legislators.
The suggestions of the Niti Aayog will simply not work. One suggestion is for terms of legislators elected in between cycles to be only for the remaining period of the cycle—can a state be sent to polls repeatedly till they come out with a clear winner? A meaningful debate should begin with asking whether the Constitution’s framers envisaged a Parliament where 20-odd parties would have elected representatives in any legislature—lessening the likelihood of a straight majorities. Most likely, not.
While this is too less space to elaborate on potential solutions, restricting Parliament elections to just national parties as well as embracing the true meaning of federalism by restricting the power of the Centre over states (giving state parties more autonomy) might be a useful place to start.
Abraham Mathews
Advocate who practices in the Supreme Court, and also a chartered accountant
Email: matabrahamc@gmail.com