Last February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pitched for conducting simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies
To address the issue of frequent elections in the country — which halts development programmes — the Niti Aayog has called for simultaneous two-phase Lok Sabha and Assembly elections across the country from 2024. "We may begin work towards switching to a synchronised two-phase election model from the 2024 election to the Lok Sabha. This would require a maximum one-time curtailment or extension of some State Assemblies," the body said recently.
Last February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pitched for conducting simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies. Acting on the suggestion, Niti Aayog came out with a draft report in April, which was circulated among the governing council members (consisting chief ministers of all states among others). After engaging stake holders, the Aayog has now come out with a working paper for deciding a road-map for synchronised elections.
"There are many compelling reasons in favour of simultaneous elections. Suspension of development programmes, welfare activities due to frequent imposition of Model Code of Conduct, massive expenditures by the government and various stakeholders on frequent elections, black money, engagement of government personnel and security forces for a prolonged period of time, perpetuation of caste, religion, and communal issues, etc," it said.
But, what is interesting is that it quotes a study published by IDFC Institute saying that on an average 86 per cent Indians vote for the same party if elections for Lok Sabha and Assemblies are held simultaneously. This implies that looking for the same party government in both the Centre and the state was also a motive of the suggestion. The authors of this study analysed electoral data for four rounds of Lok Sabha elections – 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014, and the states whose elections coincided these elections. They noted that the "trend of choosing the same party has gone up from 68 per cent in 1999 to 86 per cent in 2014" implying that "the ability or willingness of the voter to vote differently is only decreasing with time.
The PM had said that more than Rs 1,100 crore was spent on the 2009 Lok Sabha polls and the expenditure had shot up to Rs 4,000 crore in 2014. Over a crore government employees, including a large number of teachers, are involved in the electoral process. Thus, the continuous exercise causes maximum harm to the education sector, he had said.
Echoing the PM, the Niti Aayog paper also says that elections would clearly open up possibilities of resource optimisation. While the need for EVMs will increase, as separate machines will be required for Lok Sabha and State Assembly polls, the requirement of personnel and security companies, however, may not increase by a similar proportion.
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