Merits and demerits of conducting simultaneous elections for State Assemblies and Parliament

Concerns with simultaneous elections:

1. Voting behaviour of people from the evidence is that they vote to the same party for the state and central government when elections are held concurrently for both.In 1999 people from 77% of the constituencies voted to the same party at both levels.
2. simultaneous elections bring to a standstill normal functioning of the government and life of the citizens and bring a heavy recurring costs.
3. Huge task and increased burden for election commission to conduct the elections.
4. if loksabha is dissolved then all state governments need to be dissolved too is the question.For example when the former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s 13-day government fell in 1996, should all the State Assemblies have been dissolved at that time’ Would it have been valid to disturb the mandate of those governments

local and national issues do get mixed up to distort priorities.

Merits of simultaneous elections:-

• governance gap leads to policy paralysis and governance deficit:
• During two and half months of lok sabha elections-government cannot announce any new schemes,make any new appointments, transfers or postings without EC approval.
• Ministers get busy in the election campaign, the district administration machinery gets totally focused on elections.
• political parties and its workers have been wasting too much time and money inelectioneering.if implemented, would free up a lot of time and resources for political and social workers to bring change at the grassroots level.
• to avoid the costs of the electionas they have gone up enormously. It has two components — the cost of management to the EC/ government and the cost to candidates and political parties. Though there are no exact estimates, one guess estimate puts it at Rs 4,500 crore..
• The bigger problem is the havoc played by the money power of political partiesand contestants. Though the law prescribes a ceiling on the expenditure of candidates, the fact is that it is violated with impunity
• enhances accountability as there is a tendency by the elected representatives to forget voters after the elections for five years and frequent elections keeps them on their toes.
• Infringement of the people’s right to choose their representativesfor the sake of saving money or for administrative convenience cannot pass judicial muster.
• elections give a boost to the economyat the grassroots level, creating work opportunities for lakhs of people.
• there are some environmental benefitsalso that flow out of the rigorous enforcement of public discipline like non-defacement of private and public property, noise and air pollution, ban on plastics, etc.
• Results at the central level influence the state elections based on the work done by the central government too when elections are not held simultaneously.