10.01.2021.
Post the call by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi for the need of “One Nation, One Election” in November 2020, the BJP organized a slew of webinars on the topic with expert speakers, taking the dialogue on Simultaneous Elections to the people. One such webinar was organized by BJP’s National Spokesperson and Advocate Ms. Nupur Sharma on 10.01.2021.
The panel had constitutional expert and former Secretary-General of Lok Sabha Dr. Subhash C.Kashyap, legal luminaries Mr. Soli Sorabjee and Mr. Mahesh Jethmalani and Rajya Sabha MP and President of ICCR Dr. Vinay Sahasrabuddhe as panelists.
The webinar saw wide-spread participation from the country and was started with a video of Mr. Soli Sorabjee where he opined on the issue saying that “I think Simultaneous Elections.. to my mind is a good practice. The fact that it was abused in some cases is no reason of doing away with it.. just check the abuse, not delay the provision. Simultaneous Election was there before wasn’t it? Just because of political reasons, there was abuse.. but the point is check the abuse, don’t delete the provision.”
Thereafter Dr. Subhash C. Kashyap, who has also contributed extensively to the Law Commission’s Draft Report on “Simultaneous Elections” dated 30th August 2018, gave his remarks reflecting on how multiple reports by various committees and seminars and talks mooting the very need to have concurrent elections have been held in the past. He further said the fear and opposition is usually political wherein regional parties from several states feel local issues will get diluted with national issues. However, citing various reports published by multiple commissions Dr. Subhash C. Kashyap called the need to have Simultaneous Elections “unexceptionable”. Sr. Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani spoke next and summed up the issue passionately in favor of one election by calling it “One People, One Poll”. Given that the concept of single polls is not alien to the country he stressed that this is “not a call for radical change” but given the mode of constant electioneering and expenses incurred on them the system needed to be “recaliberated”.
Rajya Sabha MP and President of ICCR Dr. Vinay Sahasrabuddhe gave practical examples from his adopted village under ‘Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana’ of how the Prime Minister was correct that frequent polls and implementation of the Model Code of Conduct hampered development works. He further said to presume that single or simultaneous polls would undermine democracy and favor only one party or political leader was an insult to the voter. Rather, he said, multiple elections were an “open invitation to populist politics”.Citing the results of Maharashtra State Elections in 1999 and Orissa – a state which goes to polls with general Elections every 5 years – Dr. Sahasrabuddhe built his case in favor of bringing back the provision of Simultaneous polls in our country.
Thereafter, on the intervention and question of possible scenario in case of a hung parliament/assembly by BJP’s spokesperson Nupur Sharma, the panel discussed at length the provision of “constructive vote of no-confidence” as in Germany and as recommended by the Law Commission of India in it’s 2018 draft Report.
