Avoiding Frequent Elections in India

Version-2

Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi is right when he expresses concerns about the country being perpetually on Election mode. There are many dis-advantages under this situation. The political parties, especially in the opposition go for competitive popular government schemes without any consideration for its feasibility and condition of the state economy. Secondly the ruling parties either go for big schemes in a hurry before the elections and at the same time, are forced to stop any reasonable developmental activities, by the poll code of conduct. All these things costs the tax payer heavily in addition to the wasted expenditure on frequent elections. Another important factor has come into play in the last decade during these frequent elections. it is the religious and ideological polarization that happens during these elections and the same persisting through to the next (and the next) elections. We are not here to discuss who is to blame for this. We are more interested in finding a leader who will stop this trend or at least reduce its bad effects of such polarization on Indian body-politics.

The PM’s solution, of having ‘One Nation/One Election’, has been shown to create more problems than it solves. Perhaps, there could be a solution in going half-way.

Lok Sabha elections generally produce stable results & any government, in general, lasts a full term of 5 years. This period of 5 years, or 60 months, can be split into 3 periods 20 months, each period consisting of 18 election-free months plus 2 months. These 2 months in each of the above three periods can be ear marked as windows for 3 sets of assembly elections lasting 2 months each. Those state assemblies which are to complete their terms within this 18-months-long election-free period, can be given an option either to dissolve early or to have a president rule till the next window of two-months-election period.

If any state legislature is dissolved out of turn, the midterm poll also should follow this regime. Once this schedule is accepted and achieved, this should really mean that all elections, local body elections, bye-elections and if possible, even elections to Rajya Sabha and legislative councils, should be conducted in one of these windows only, leaving out the three 18-month election-free-periods. It might also be better for elections to Rajya Sabha from a state, to wait for the elections to that state legislature to be completed to ensure that it represents the will of the people.

State Governments & Central Government get these 18-months election-free-periods for concentrating on developmental work without bothering for any impending elections & the consequent code of conduct. The transition into this mode of scheduling elections is also easy as shown in the following table. Once this transition is completed, it is very easy to maintain the same.

Table -1: Three windows for state elections

Once this schedule is accepted and achieved, this should really mean that all elections, local body elections, bye-elections and  even elections to legislative councils, should be conducted in one of these windows only, leaving out the three 18-month election-free periods. If any state legislature is dissolved out of turn, the midterm poll also should follow this regime. It would be better for the central govt should also think of not upsetting this regime, whenever the govt thinks of going for a midterm poll for the Lok Sabha.

In Table-2 a typical schedule of elections henceforth is evolved, assuming that Lok Sabha elections take place in April 2024.

Tags: Elections, Politics