Moving ahead on concurrent polls

The Narendra Modi government, which completes a 100 days in office today, intends to roll out its “one nation, one election” agenda during this term. A senior functionary of the government said this on Sunday, while highlighting the multiple policy interventions made in Prime Minister Modi’s third consecutive term. However, the government’s push for simultaneous polls to Parliament and state assemblies — a hugely contested issue that will necessarily involve the overhauling of India’s electoral democracy — is likely to test its political mettle: The BJP, which is deeply invested in the idea, will need to get all its allies on board, and, even reach out to a resurgent Opposition, sections of which are opposed to this reform. Similarly, the government will have to take a call on whether to have a caste count when it kickstarts the much-delayed population census.

The government has, of course, sought to dispel the notion that the compulsions of running a coalition government — unlike in the NDA governments of 2014 and 2019, the BJP this time has fallen short of a simple majority and is dependent on allies such as the JD(U) and the TDP for numbers in the Lok Sabha — may force it to keep contentious issues on the back burner. In the past two terms, it had its way in Parliament on policy matters — the farm Bills, which it withdrew following a year-long agitation by farmers’ organisations, were an exception. In the case of “one nation, one election”, the government will need a broader consensus since the change also concerns the states and local bodies. There could always be a pushback from unexpected quarters, including allies, if the necessary goodwill has not been created in favour of radical reforms.

Legal and administrative hassles can stymie the best of policies in the best of times. Both in the case of simultaneous polls and caste census, there are persuasive arguments in their favour and against them: The government has argued that multiple and frequent elections bleed the exchequer and slow down governance whereas critics view the move as undermining the federal character of the Republic. Caste census is similarly a fraught issue wherein electoral considerations have overshadowed a dispassionate conversation on the merits and demerits of including caste as a census category — since 1931, only Scheduled Castes have been enumerated as a distinct group.

Against this backdrop, it is best if the government initiates a dialogue involving various stakeholders to iron out differences and forge a consensus before initiating administrative action on both the policies.