Can Lok Sabha & Assembly Elections be held simultaneously? - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
September 10, 2016
The Election Commission of India (ECI) is perennially busy conducting elections to the State Legislative Assemblies or to the Lok Sabha. This frequent conduct of elections involves huge expenditure and use of various other resources. The Government has now initiated a dialogue on the feasibility of holding simultaneous elections to both the Lok Sabha & State Legislative Assemblies.
The Citizen Engagement Platform of the Government, MyGov has initiated a discussion on holding simultaneous elections to both the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies. This comes after both the President and the Prime Minister spoke in favour of holding simultaneous elections. The 79th report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice was presented last year in both the houses of Parliament. The report dealt with the issue of ‘Feasibility of Holding Simultaneous Elections to the House of People (Lok Sabha) and State Legislative Assemblies’. The committee in its report felt that debate on this important issue should be initiated and an effort should be made for a national consensus to avoid frequent elections.
The Cycle of simultaneous elections got disrupted in late 1960s
The committee noted that the first general election to the Lok Sabha and all State Legislative Assemblies were held simultaneously in 1951-52. The practice continued in three subsequent General Elections held in the years 1957, 1962 and 1967. This cycle got disrupted with the dissolution of some Legislative Assemblies in 1968 and 1969. In 1970, the Lok Sabha was itself dissolved prematurely and fresh elections were held in 1971. Thus the 1, 2 and 3 Lok Sabha enjoyed full five year terms. The term of the 5 Lok Sabha was extended till 1977 under article 352 of the constitution (emergency).
The 8, 10, 14 and 15 Lok Sabha could complete their full five year terms while the 6, 7, 9, 11, 12 and 13 Lok Sabha was dissolved prematurely. As a result of premature dissolutions and extension of terms of both the Lok Sabha and various State Legislative Assemblies, there have been separate elections to Lok Sabha and States Legislative Assemblies and the cycle of simultaneous elections has been disturbed in the last 48 years.
Need for Simultaneous Elections
The need for simultaneous election to Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies has been debated and felt for quite some time now. As elections have become a big budget affair and expensive, The Law Commission of India in its 170th  Report on Reform of Electoral Laws (1999) has suggested simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies for the sake of stability in governance.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee mentioned the following broad reasons for exploring simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha & State Assemblies.
Suggestions of the Election Commission of India (ECI)
The ECI on its part has suggested the following to the Parliamentary Standing Committee for the conduct of simultaneous elections.
The ECI has also pointed out to the standing committee, the several difficulties that might be encountered for conducting simultaneous elections. The primary issue is the large scale purchase of Electronic Voting Machines and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines. For conducting simultaneous elections, the Commission expects that a total of rupees 9284.15 crores will be needed for procurement of EVMs and VVPATs. The machines would need to be replaced every fifteen years and storing these machines would increase the warehousing cost.
Submissions of Political Parties to the Standing Committee
Various political parties submitted their written response to the standing committee as summarized below.
Global Precedent
In South Africa, elections to national as well as provincial legislatures are held simultaneously for five years and municipal elections are held two years later. In Sweden election to national legislature and provincial legislature/county council and local bodies/municipal Assemblies are held on a fixed date i.e. second Sunday in September for four years (last was held on 14th September, 2014 and the forthcoming one is slated on 9th September, 2018).
The Standing Committee’s Recommendations
The standing committee made the following recommendations after going through the various suggestions that were put forward.
The committee feels that the report would open up debate on this important issue and to try and establish national consensus to avoid frequent elections. The committee also mentioned that holding simultaneous elections may not be feasible in 2016 or even in a decade, but a solution will be found to reduce the frequency of elections.