One nation, one election: Which parties are in favour? Who has said no?

As many as 32 political parties backed the proposal of simultaneous elections, while 15 parties opposed it, the report by the high-level committee (HLC) on ‘One Nation, One Election’ has revealed. The panel headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind had approached 62 parties, of which 47 responded.

The high-level committee submitted the report to President Droupadi Murmu on Thursday (14 March). After the panel was formed last September, it engaged with various stakeholders, including political parties and former Chief Election Commissioners (CECs), to seek their opinions on holding simultaneous polls.

Let’s take a look at where political parties stand.

32 in favour, 15 oppose 

Out of the more than 30 parties that supported synchronising elections to Lok Sabha, state Assemblies and local bodies, all are either the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) allies or have cordial relations with the saffron party, as per an Indian Express report.

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Twenty-six parties that are part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) are in favour of One Nation, One Poll (ONOP), while only one is against it. Out of the 32 parties backing the proposal, only two are recognised as national parties by the Election Commission – the BJP and its ally the National People’s Party (NPP), the newspaper report noted.

The BJP allies which support simultaneous elections include All Jharkhand Students’ Union (AJSU), Apna Dal (Soneylal), Asom Gana Parishad, Lok Janshakti Party (R), Nagaland’s National Democratic Progressive Party, Sikkim Krantikari Morcha, Mizo National Front, United People’s Party Liberal, Janata Dal (United), and Shiv Sena (a faction of which led by Eknath Shinde is a part of NDA).

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The Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which is in alliance talks with the BJP and has supported the Centre in crucial Bills, has supported One Nation, One Election. The Shiromani Akali Dal and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), part of the NDA earlier, also support the proposal.

All 10 parties of the Opposition INDIA bloc, including the Congress, do not want simultaneous polls. Four of the 15 parties against the move are national parties — the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M).

The other parties opposing the move are All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), Communist Party of India (CPI), Naga People’s Front (NPF), Samajwadi Party (SP), Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, the CPI(M-L), and Social Democratic Party of India.

The 15 parties that did not respond to the Kovind-led panel were Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), BJP’s new allies Rashtriya Lok Dal, JD(S) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Jammu And Kashmir National Conference, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Shiromani Akali Dal (Mann), Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, Indian Union Muslim League, Sikkim Democratic Front, Kerala Congress (M), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSR Congress Party.

What parties supporting simultaneous polls said

Simultaneous elections have been the BJP’s agenda for a long time. It is not a new idea either. In fact, the practice was applicable in India till 1967. However, as several state Assemblies were dissolved prematurely in 1968-69, it led to different polling cycles in those states.

In 1970, the Lok Sabha was dissolved a year ahead of schedule; mid-elections were held the next year.

The saffron party has called for bringing back this practice. In its response to the Kovind panel, the BJP pointed out that simultaneous polls “worked seamlessly between 1952 to 1967”. It emphasised in its letter submitted this February about the “significant loss of up to 800 days in five years” due to the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), saying this “adversely” impacts developmental work and governance efficiency. The saffron party also talked about the “repeated diversion” of security forces from key internal security duties during the election phase.

The JD(U), which has recently rejoined the NDA, said ONOP would streamline the electoral process, as well as lead to “cost saving, policy continuity, and focused governance”, the HLC report mentioned. However, the party opposed holding local body elections with Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, arguing that they are held as per different laws in different states.

Naveen Patnaik’s BJD iterated its longstanding support of the idea, saying holding multiple polls at different levels and periods causes “fiscal strain and delays in governance”. The party that is in power in Odisha also implored the Kovind-led panel to take the plan to its “logical conclusion.”

Backing simultaneous polls, the ruling party in Meghalaya, the Conrad Sangma-led National People’s Party, called for convening separate consultations with regional parties in the Northeast.

Why some parties are against ONOP

The Congress vehemently opposed the idea of simultaneous elections in India. In its letter to the Kovind-led panel, the Grand Old Party argued that implementing ONOP would lead to “substantial changes to the basic structure of the Constitution”, adding that it went against the “guarantees of federalism” and would “subvert the parliamentary democracy.”

The party termed the argument that the cost of holding multiple elections is extremely high “baseless”, saying that “people will be willing to consider this small amount as the cost of free and fair elections”.

The Congress said in its January letter to the panel that “there is no place for the concept of simultaneous elections in a country that has adopted a Parliamentary system of government”.

The AAP told the high-level committee that ONOP would “undermine” democracy, the Constitution’s basic structure, and the federal polity of the country. The Arvind Kejriwal-led party said the move would “institutionalise a Presidential form of government which cannot be dislodged by a vote of no-confidence.”

Mayawati’s BSP did not explicitly oppose the idea but asked the Kovind panel to provide “a working framework” for simultaneous elections. The party stressed the challenges of such an exercise, citing large territorial spread and India’s population. It also called on the need to “strengthen, optimise and ensure responsiveness in the existing electoral system” before implementing such a massive shift, saying the “real solution” to the present problems was in carrying out free and fair elections.

In its January letter, the Naga People’s Front said simultaneous polls would “invariably defeat the spirit of federal structure”, as “a national agenda would overshadow regional and local issues”. It also raised objections to “the overhaul of the Constitution”, which is required for implementing the proposal.

The DMK said that dissolving the state Assemblies prematurely to hold simultaneous polls
was “unconstitutional”. It also said the constitution of the Kovind-led committee by the Centre was “illegal”, and questioned its jurisdiction.

The ruling party in Kerala, the CPI(M), called ONOP “fundamentally anti-democratic”, saying that it “strikes at the root of the parliamentary democratic system as ordained in the Constitution”.

With inputs from agencies