One Nation One Election

ONOE — One Nation One Election is one of the few most ambitious policies of the current Union government along with the UCC. What is ONOE? It is the Simultaneous Elections of the Local Bodies, Assemblies and Parliament of all the states. Earlier during the initial years of the implementation of the constitution simultaneous elections were held. But by citing various reasons either Presidential rule as per Article-356 was imposed by the Union Government or the Chief Ministers have dissolved their Government as per Article-172. In this Article let us analyse the need, challenges and measures to implement ONOE.

Need For ONOE:

1. In the world’s largest democratic country for every one year elections at least in one state elections happen and the political parties see them as referendum to their governance of passed over tenure. The party in power wants to win the election and generally the political party at Union sees it as a quarter or semi finals or pre finals for their governance at Delhi. So even they want to win the election. So this cycle is disturbing Governance at Union.
2. Also Union Govt. to win the elections it announces the special provisions for those states in the respective year budget and gets the criticism from the Opposition parties that “When is the Budget for Whole country will be placed”.
3. It may decrease the constant hurdle for conducting elections every year for ECI and it can just held Bi-elections or Legislative council elections whenever there is a vacancy
4. Biggest problem that is duplicacy of voters at multiple places can be removed.
5. It can increase the voting percentage as elections come just once 5 years so people are willing to participate and will promote employers to give Election holiday. This can even stop disturbing the economy.
6. Single Electoral List for all elections from panchayat to parliament. So even the exercise of constant enrolling of voters can be reduced.
7. Brings down the budget of the elections. Also the informal money circulation i.e., vote for note drastically comes down.
8. Regular Conductions of the elections without delaying incase of local bodies and sometimes even in case of state assemblies.

Challenges:

1. As we know India’s follows Federal System unless during the emergencies, which is even reiterated by supreme court and included in the basic structure. ONOE may take away the right of the state governments to complete their tenure of 5 years.
2. Derails the policy continuation if the Govt. is collapsed in between and new government is elected. It gives less time for both the parties to implement the policies and even for people to judge the performance.
3. Snatches the excitement of voting from the younger generation. For eg: if they are just few months away to get the age of 18 but they are not able to vote, they need to wait till the age of 23 again unless unforeseen circumstances
4. Though it is said as the budget of the election reduces, not sure of it because ONOE requires many EVM’S to be deployed across the country. It can cause severe Logistical issues. Also to maintain the law and order for free and fair elections and to maintain safety of the EVMs after voting huge force deployment is required.
5. As per the studies, researchers have found that ONOE can have result favourable towards current political party in government i.e., if simultaneous elections are held there 71% chances that party in power comes back and same party in state as well, whereas if the current format continues there are 61% chances that party in power comes back and same party in state as well.
6. What would be the path if the conditions in the state are not suitable for the conducting elections.

Measures:

1. Union Government has constituted a committee under the former President Ramnath Kovind and it has submitted it’s report. These suggestions include Amendment of Various Articles in Constitution. They are:

• Article 82-A: Fixing an Appointed Date for ending the some of the state governments
• Article 83: Duration of the Loksabha
• Article 85: Summoning, Proroguing, Dissolving Parliament
• Article 172: Duration of the State Legislative Assemblies
• Article 174: Summoning, Proroguing, Dissolving Assembly
• Article 324A: Synchronisation of Local Bodies election with General Election
• Article 325: Single Electoral ID and EPIC for all elections.

2. Use of Technology in various fields like Monitoring with the help of drones instead of deploying huge forces, Web casting and commad control centres, Digital voting using block chain technology, Digital Campaigns etc.,

3. If assembly or parliament is dissolved the next term should be the remaining of the left over 5 year team. This way can we ensure synchronised elections. Currently this is implemented for local body elections.

4. Regular automatic updation of electoral list on attaining 18 years based on registered birth date in the state registrar. Similarly deaths also. This prevents huge exercise of enrollment and promotes political inclusion.

5. Linking voter id and Aadhar Card can help in preventing the duplicacy issues.

This are some of the reasons why ONOE is required and challenges associated with it and Measures that can be taken for proper implementation. Along with this there is a need for grassroot changes in the Indian Democracy like Identity Politics like religion, linguistic, caste based politics and huge decrease in the influence of money is required which is creating an another alternative during the election period.