One Nation Three Elections — Better Alternative to One Nation One Elections
The current government especially our Prime Minister has been pushing for One Nation One Election . The main reason why they are pushing for this is that they believe since every few months there are elections. The central government is not able to perform due to the Model Code of Conduct coming into effect every time there is an election from the election commission. Another opinion is that having simultaneous elections will save the country huge sum of money. Conducting a countrywide election cost ₹50,000 crore rupees.
The critics of this plan argue that having a single election will put local issues on the backburner. They worry that the national party will take away all the seats even in state and local body election because the election would be fought in the name of the Prime Minister or the ruling party all across India in a more so presidential style of election.
Another worry is that if we combine all elections, it would be tough to get in touch with their elected representatives since some of them are only available during election time.
There are also several nitty-gritty is that have to be worked out. For example, if the elected government is dismissed midway, then what happens what happens to no-confidence motion. Currently the validity of a no-confidence motion is six months. In my humble opinion, all these nitty-gritty is can be easily worked out. It is just about coming to a compromise that everyone agrees upon.
I am here to propose a alternative to one nation, one election which is to have One Nation Three Elections. As per my plan
- We increase the tenure of a elected official from five years to 6 years.
- Every second year we will have a election.
- First the Centre election, then the state election and finally the local body election.
- All this will happen synchronously across the entire country.
- In case a government falls, the tenure of this new elected government is till the reminder of the six-year term.
eg- If you got disqualified in the fourth year and a new government is formed, its tenure will be there only for two years and after that you'll have to again go for fresh elections.
The Model Code of Conduct is usually two months before the elections plus the time that it takes to complete the election. Let's say three months goes waste for every election. This means that a period of nine months in a tenure of six years is lost due to no governance. This is far better than the current system where election happens every few months. Also, if you factor in the another one or two months that these elected officials spent campaigning, this would add another six months of no major governance. But since every thing happens synchronous, the net loss is still far better than the current system.
This also has the added advantage that your elected officials will reach out to you once every two years. This would significantly improve the grievance redressal mechanism. Yes, this happens to some extent in a lot of states where there is a gap between the various elections but in a significant number of states, this happen pretty close to each other thus leaving a huge gap.
Another point to consider is that if we have all elections at one point or the same time then we would need three times the number of EVM is that we have today and we will have to educate everyone on why they need to vote thrice and which specific election they will be voting on this EVM.
Having simultaneous elections is definitely a good idea. How much good is a single election i don’t know.
What if a new law isn’t needed at all. Read the Part 2
