ONE NATION ONE ELECTION

In 1983, the election commission gave this idea for the first time. Elections of Lok Sabha and
Vidhan Sabha to be held at one time only.

Article 83: Tenure of Lok Sabha should be 5 years. Except in cases like emergency.

Article 85: Dissolution of Lok Sabha.

Article 172: Tenure of State assembly is 5 years.

Article 174: Dissolution of state assembly

Article 356: President’s rule.

Constitution is silent on the scheme of one nation one election.

Benefits:

- Election commission will be relieved from organising election again and again.
- Reduction in election costs: Increase in spending cost from 1500 in 2009 crore to
3800 crore in 2014 of only election commission of India. Including all forces etc. the
budget might go upto 10000 crore. India’s election is among world’s most expensive.
Centre for Media report: Expenditure of 50000 crore by all parties in 2014 elections.
- State assembly and Central government can make policies together
- Only one voter list in the nation
- National safety guards will also save their time.

It is wrong to say if one party is not in majority it will then also lead for 5 years. This is
practically not possible as bills might not be passes, budget might not be passed due to lack of
majority.

Pitfalls:

It will benefit national parties and small parties will be left out as many a times people only
vote to only one party and will do the same for national and state elections.

For implementation proper rules should be made in various scenarios like hung assembly.

Video 2:
The election commission of India has discretionary powers in the manner and time for
holding elections. It has decided to hold the elections in 2 parts (different days) for 2 different
seats in Gujarat. This is legal as it has discretionary powers. These elections could have been
done on one day but are being held on 2 different days.

Past: It is not a new concept. From the first election itself i.e. 1952 till 1967, all (State and
Central) the elections were held simultaneously. But, due to different scenarios the timings
started differing. Eg. Inclusion of a new state, hung assembly, emergency.

-Proper law need to be made in reference to different scenarios for eg. loosing of majority by
the ruling government, emergency,

2/3 majority is needed.

Federal nature issue: Wave of a central political party will go on through out the nation and it
will undermine the regional political parties. This is a pertinent issue in the times of mind-
manipulation techniques and brain washing techniques used by different political parties.

But the solution lies in educating the masses and the voters about the possibility of such
circumstances and the voter needs to be smart enough to not get influenced by such
incidences.

Potential riots in the whole nation. Currently these are not nationwide and limit themselves
just to states where elections are happening. Yale universities report shows that after every
communal riots the vote share of parties like BJP increases by around 1%. Some studies show
increase in vote % by 5%. 2018 Karnataka riots. 2

Solution is again in educating the masses.