‘One Nation, One Election’ Initiative To Transform India’s Electoral Landscape

There is no doubt that India is the largest democracy in the world. But it is also true that the country loses thousands of crores for its consistent elections.

Today is a very important day for being an Indian citizen. I’m saying this as a significant meeting is taking place in Delhi to discuss the concept of ‘One Nation, One Election.’

Former President Ram Nath Kovind is chairing this meeting, which is the inaugural gathering of the ‘One Nation, One Election’ Committee.

The committee also includes important members like Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Congress Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, and others.

The ‘One Nation, One Election’ idea means holding elections for the Lok Sabha and state assemblies at the same time across the country. Currently, states hold their elections at different times, leading to frequent and several polls throughout the year.

Thus the main focus of this meeting is to explore the possibility of conducting elections across the country for the Lok Sabha (Parliament), state assemblies, municipalities, as well as panchayats simultaneously.

The committee is going to discuss how to handle situations like a paused assembly or a vote of no confidence during simultaneous elections.

The committee will propose a framework and a timeline for these synchronized elections. They will also decide how to involve stakeholders, conduct research, and prepare necessary documents.

The members will also recommend changes to the Constitution and election laws to enable simultaneous elections.

Additionally, the committee will address logistics issues, such as acquiring more voting machines and ensuring security during these massive elections. They will also explore the possibility of using a single electoral roll and identity cards for voters in all types of elections.

Several states, including Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, are currently preparing for assembly elections in the coming months.

The ‘One Nation, One Election’ Committee’s work is very important for the nation to streamline India’s election processes. It will reduce the frequency of elections. It will save resources and prevent manpower duplication in election-related tasks.

For your information, the Election Commission handles parliamentary and assembly elections. While the state election commissions manage local elections.

The ‘One Nation, One Election’ concept is set to create a more efficient and synchronized electoral system for the entire country.

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In present-day Bharat (India), there are 543 MPs in the Lok Sabha, 4,120 MLAs in the Vidhan Sabha, and a total of 30 lakh members in panchayats and municipalities.

The elections for all these positions almost throughout the year, across the country. We can’t even estimate how much this costs the country in terms of money, resources, manpower, and time. Every year, the country faces losses in the ‘thousands of crores’ due to these random elections.

If I talk about the period from 1951 to 1967, most of the elections in the country used to happen together. But over time, this pattern changed. However, no government has ever attempted to consolidate them again.

The common public, like us, also get so troubled by all these random elections. As you know, we have to work for our jobs or businesses every day. But these elections continue throughout the year & disturb our daily life.

This constantly diverts the nation’s attention. If all elections across the country happened at once in the form of “One Nation, One Election”, the remaining time, resources and thousands of crores could be utilized for the country’s progress.