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Country without a pause

Kashmir Times. Dated: 4/26/2016 11:33:16 PM

To realize Sangh Parivar agenda of unilateralism, BJP begins closed door discussion on simultaneous elections to LS and state legislatures

If some of the political activities behind the curtains of the ruling dispensation are to be believed, it appears that BJP-led NDA government has started a discussion on having a unilateral system to have complete control over the affairs of the country in the next few years. This appears to be a precursor to coming events which are casting their shadow over the political sphere of India where federalism is in place for having elections to choose governments in different states of India on different occasions. The elections are being held on time whenever the local governments complete their tenure of five or more years or when mid-term elections are held. It is in this context that some of the members of the parliament in BJP and its allies have been pressing on their respective central leaders to combine all the elections and hold them in one go. At a closed-door meeting with BJP office-bearers in the recent past, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a case for holding elections to Parliament, State legislatures and local bodies simultaneously. A fortnight back, a group of ministers initiated a discussion with Election Commission officials on the proposal after holding discussions with their partymen. Certainly the proposal is far from new, having been made earlier by top BJP leaders. L K Advani has advocated it on not one occasion only in the past, and the BJP's manifestos for the 2009 and 2014 general elections promised to "evolve a method of holding Assembly and Lok Sabha elections simultaneously". The reasons cited are to reduce election expenditure and to impart stability to state governments. As a general idea, simultaneity can hardly be faulted as it would check election expenditure, free the central government from a populism that is forced on it by a constantly ticking election cycle, and end the repeated pause on decision-making because of the Model Code of Conduct. It is a necessary debate that the Prime Minister has begun. But it must be evaluated with a clear focus on the problems it seeks to solve, as well as its practicability.
In the past, early years of the Republic saw simultaneous elections to national and state legislatures. That this link was firmly broken by the early 1970s provides an inkling of the difficulties in mandating it for India's Westminster-inspired parliamentary democracy. For instance, how do fixed-term legislatures square up with other constitutional and democratic processes, such as the requirement that the government command the confidence of the Lower House? This operates at many levels. In the event of a government losing its majority and no other party being able to mop up the numbers, it would be untenable to hold off elections for too long. But in the thought process of the Sangh Parivar, such states which cannot be subjected to elections should come under central rule through their appointed Governors. In addition, fixed terms would militate against the freedom that a government has to go back to the people any time to refresh its mandate. Given that partisan stand-offs are inhibiting cooperation across the aisles, to dispense with the option of returning to the people for a refreshed mandate would be self-defeating in a democratic system. In fixed-term legislatures, as in the US, there is a clear separation between the legislature and the head of government. Such a system is far removed from that envisaged by the founders of our Constitution, who settled for a cabinet system of government that comprises a constitutional head and the exercise of power through a Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister. The solution to excessive campaign expenditure and a much too focussed eye on the electoral cycle is better found in persuading political leaderships to develop self-discipline and to explain to the people the need for unpopular, but necessary, decisions. The sporadic advocacy of simultaneous elections by the BJP is informed by self-interest as well. An overlapping campaign would rejig the federal terms in its favour by allowing it to project its prime ministerial candidate against regional parties' chief ministerial aspirants. This would pave the way for a direct conflict on many occasions when the central government candidates will be contesting and fighting political battles on streets against states' nominees without any distinction between the two levels of democratic exercise. Thus leading to sending confusion signals to the electorate while making an attempt to create a unilateral regime under the aegis of a truly federal structure of the Indian Constitution.