Panel recommends Simultaneous Elections (Special)

The Ram Nath Kovind-led Panel submitted its report on the feasibility of implementing 'one nation, one poll'. In its report, the committee recommends that elections of the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies take place simultaneously.

1: Dimension-Focus of the Report & recommendation

The key focus of the report is the establishment of a unified electoral roll for conducting elections at various levels of governance, including the Lok Sabha, state assemblies, municipalities, and panchayats.  

• The committee recommends that the Government develop a legally tenable mechanism to restore the cycle of simultaneous elections. It further recommends-
  • In the first step, simultaneous elections to the House of the People and the State Legislative Assemblies be held.
  • In the second step, the elections to Municipalities and Panchayats will be synchronised with the House of the People (Lok Sabha) and State Legislative Assemblies in such a way that elections to Municipalities and Panchayats are held within a hundred days of the holding of elections of the House of the People and the State Legislative Assemblies.
• Introduce Article 324A for simultaneous elections in local bodies, amend Article 325 for a single electoral roll and identity card.
• There are also points in regard to actions that should be taken in cases such as a hung house, no-confidence motion, etc.
• The committee also clarified in its report that the states do not need to ratify the constitutional amendment to hold simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.

2: Dimension- Benefits of Synchronised elections

Pros

• Economic gains: Synchronised elections will lead to “higher economic growth, lower inflation, higher investments, and improved quality of expenditure”.
• Eased burden: It would also ease the burden on administrative and security forces, who otherwise are engaged multiple times in election duties.
• Increased turn out: Simultaneous elections will increase voter turnout because it will be more easy for people to cast many ballots at once.
• Better governance: Also, the government can focus more on governance rather than being in an  election mode, which often hampers policy implementation.

Cons

• Synching issue: The biggest challenge is to sync the terms of the various state legislative assemblies with those of Lok Sabha.
• Increased complexity: There is also no clarity on dealing with situations like midterm polls or the President's rule in case any party fails to get the majority.
• Regional political parties argue that having the two elections simultaneously would hamper their prospects because they won't be able to highlight local issues prominently.

3: Dimension- Downside of Recurring elections

• Loss of governance: Recurring elections not just imply more monetary cost but also the loss of governance time as politicians focus their time on campaigning and bureaucrats remain occupied with election work as opposed to implementing policies and public projects.
• Cost on state: The deployment of security forces away from their primary objective for electoral purposes also imposes further costs on the state.
• Affected policy-making: Lastly, the model code of conduct, it is claimed, affects public policy-making.