Elections for 10 state assemblies with Lok Sabha in 2019?

The renewed call for simultaneous elections, reiterated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Niti Aayog’s Governing Council meeting, discussions initiated on the online platform MyGov.in and the position paper prepared by the Niti Aayog earlier this year are indications of how serious the government is to hold simultaneous polls.

Indications are that despite apprehensions and opposition, the Centre is all set to set the ball rolling by clubbing many state assembly elections with the General Election for the Lok Sabha due for April-May in 2019.

Terms of as many as 10 assemblies get over in 2019, six of them in the first half and the rest towards the end of the year. They are: Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Sikkim and Telangana.

The Niti Aayog has come up with the idea of implementing the idea in two phases, the first with the Lok Sabha in 2019 and the second during the latter half of 2021. The paper does not clearly say how the tenure of the Lok Sabha will then be synchronised with states going to the poll in 2021. While the paper acknowledges that the Constitution allows curtailment but not extension of tenures of legislatures, the paper suggests that states going to polls in 2021 would have a two and a half year term so that the cycle of simultaneous polls can be fixed by 2024.

The Standing Committee of Parliament and the Niti Aayog have put forward the following reasons for holding simultaneous polls:

• The concept is not new and simultaneous elections were held till 1967 when the cycle got disrupted.
• Elections every year adversely affect governance and bring development to a standstill
• Conducting elections increasingly cost money and simultaneous elections will reduce the cost

The Niti Aayog pointed out that the Union Government incurred an expenditure of ₹3,870 crore to hold the general election in 2014 as compared to ₹1,115 crore in 2009.

It cost ₹300 crore to conduct assembly election in Bihar in 2015 and holding the assembly election in Gujarat later this year is expected to cost ₹240 crore.

But the Election Commission of India, it says, has indicated that holding simultaneous elections would cost ₹4,500 crore.