India is one of the largest democratic country in the world. Elections in India are held in every 5 years for both Lok sabha and state assemblies. Recently BJP led NDA government has raised the topic of one nation one election. The Union Government formed a committee on ‘One Nation One Election’ chaired by former Indian President Mr. Ramnath Kovind. The committee has been in discussion with the state and national level political parties. The committee said that this will ensure ease and convenience to voters, avoid voter fatigue and facilitate great voter amount. The current recommendations from committee  have sparked concern regarding the impact on democratic and federal structure of India. The other political parties and leaders are not accepting NDA’s demand of implementing one nation one election in the country. Leaders from different political parties are opposing NDA’s one nation one election demand.

The idea behind one nation one election is that elections happens in India within a gap of 5 years for both Lok sabha and state assemblies. Elections for different state assemblies are held separately in some states of the country which involves a lot of  government funds. In 2018 former President Ramnath Kovind had said that there are concerns amongst citizens regarding continuous elections in some parts of the country. This hurts the economy and development of the country. Even PM Modi had discussed the idea of one nation  one election in his rallies and speeches which clearly show that this idea hasn’t come recently NDA government has been thinking about it since long ago. The Central Government’s basic idea of one nation one election is to coordinate all state assembly elections and lok sabha elections together to reduce the amount of election in the country. Modi government believes that this will reduce election cost and will not only streamline the electoral process but also enhance governance.

This idea of one nation and one election is not new as general election for state assemblies and parliament use to held in India after independence for 20 years. However , the dissolution of state assemblies, parliament and general election resulted in disruption of the whole system. The law for separate election was mooted in 1999.

Many political parties and politician have criticized the one nation one election plan of NDA government. P. Chidambaram said NDA’s one nation one election is not possible under current constitution it will at least require five constitutional amendments , PM doesn’t have numbers to place those constitutional amendments either in Lok sabha or Rajya sabha. Whereas D.Raja says one nation one election is a constitutional gimmick.

One nation one election is a good concept but it needs to be implemented well as it has its own pros and cons. It’s advantage is that - it will save government funds, speedup development work, efficiency in governance, reduce election cost, the burden on administrative and security forces involved in election duty will be reduced, voter percentage will be increased. It also have certain disadvantages like – delay in election results, changes in constitution, problem in viability, logistic changes, affect in voters decision, regional issues might get ignored. Elections impact everyone living in the country including businesses, citizen, political parties, government. NDA government will have to face many challenges for implementing one nation one election as it require certain constitutional and logistic changes and the support of political parties and leaders.The government should not rush in implementing it.

Although BJP had promised one nation one election in its election manifesto as well. Let’s see whether NDA government be able to implement one nation one election in the country or not or will the government still needs to face more challenges in implementing it. If the government implements one nation one election in the country it will be a big achievement for the NDA government and specially for PM Modi.

Also read - https://yourviews.mindstick.com/view/views/violence 

https://yourviews.mindstick.com/view/views/international-affairs