Does One Nation One Election Erode India’s Federal Structure? | Legally Speaking

At the ‘Legally Speaking’ event organized by NewsX, Supriya Shrinate (National Spokesperson Congress) Aman Sinha (Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India) G. V. L. Narasimha Rao (Former Member of Rajya Sabha BJP), delved into the topic “Does One Nation One Election Erode India’s Federal Structure?” They shared their views and highlighted some points engaging into the topic.

Do you think it’s imp. To have One Nation One Election?

S.Y. Quraishi (Former Chief Election Commissioner Of India) stated, “The subject here is on the table for more than 10 years or more. The current controversy has been started when Mr. Narendra Modi before he became PM in 2013. All 3 tiers of election bodies should be held simultaneously and he gave the reason, cost, paralysis of administrations, no policy decisions could be taken.”

Castism, Communalism, Chronic capitalism, and Corruption will always be there. From the point of the election commission, this is the nicest thing because voters will be the same, and the machinery will be the same. He added.

What if we keep having elections every 2, or 3 months, does this keep the political party give maximum performance to the voters?

G. V. L. Narasimha Rao stated, “Elections are an important part of democracy, and we are holding elections to elect govt to governors. If you have elections every 3 months, you’re continuedly in that election mode, then no govt. can work peacefully.”

Where does this is not being federal, but draconian as the opposition raised against it?

Supriya Shrinate stated, “The union cabinet has adopted the report presented by former president Kovind, likely to table the bill. 50% of the Indian states are not going to ratify this and also not able to pass the muster of the house.”

Would political parties be willing to look at an alternative to reduce the cost for the public?

Supriya Shrinate stated, “There are about 30 lakh elected representatives in local bodies. It’s a very fancy acronym ONOE.”

Do we have any recourse to fall back on if we want to ensure there is one nation, one election?

Aman Sinha stated, “Only 2 articles of the constitution are required to be amended, primarily article 83, 172. For the unexpired term supposing that if house is desalt/loss of confidence in a particular leader of the house then in that scenario the election would happen for the expired term. Election year starts one year before any election is announced. Therefore, clearly one nation, one election is an integral part of developed India.”

Supriya Shrinate stated, “On what basis has this been assumed that inflation would be curtailed?”

What are the pertinent issues to be picked up?

S.Y. Quraishi stated, “Previously in 2013 PM Modi insisted that there should be a national debate which should lead to a consensus. But for the last 10 years, there has been no consensus. The idea was dropped.”

Can there be alternatives/ variations to one nation, one election?

Aman Sinha stated, “The proposals which are in offing should make minimal changes. Article 82 itself provides that 82(1) when starts it says that Rajya Sabha will have a fixed tenure of 6 years. The same thing has to be incorporated and imbibed in 82 (2) by where lok sabha have a fix tenure and unexpired term supposing if some MP expires and the election is set aside for some reasons then the elections take place for the residual period only.”

S.Y. Quraishi: “Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha’s election will be separated and panchayat election be also separate, panchayat election will be done after 100 days. The committee also stated that there would be a mid-term poll.”

Don’t political parties have confidence in the voter to make a decision?

Supriya Shrinate stated, “People in Indian policy-making and polity believes that this is against the grain of the constitution, this is against the federal nature of governance. This whole thing in the regional party is being scared; Congress and BJP are the political parties but we can’t negate the relevance and the emergence of the regional parties.”

S.Y. Quraishi stated, “77% of people vote for the same party and separated by one month it dropped down to 61%. Simultaneous elections actually influence voting behaviour adversely.

Aman Sinha stated, “As far as regional parties have been concerned, there was about 50-60 parties were invited by high level committee. Majority of the party has also supported this idea.”

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