Simultaneous polls will thwart federalism

Rajindar Sachar

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi has for the last six months kept up the refrain of simultaneously holding the Lok Sabha elections with the state Assembly polls. He has dwelt on the supposed advantages that would flow from implementing this measure. As was to be expected, a number of newspapers and persons are debating this matter. 

It is unfortunate that the Election Commission of India and the Niti Aayog should have gone along with this suggestion without even the minimum constitutional requirement of a public debate, seminars and, more unforgivably, without discussions of the matter with other major political parties and state governments. The present life of the Lok Sabha expires in May 2019.   

Modi's repeated emphasis on simultaneous polls is actuated by the realisation that the mood of exhilaration that he was able to create in the 2014 parliamentary poll is fast diminishing. 

From 2004  to 2014 of the UPA regime so many scandals, both financial and administrative, were exposed. So much so that people were sick of the good-but-not-visible Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, dominated as he was by the Gandhi family. Also, the exposure by the Supreme Court of the telecom and coal scandals made the BJP's task easier. 

By itself, the BJP under the leadership of  any other than Modi (helped fully by the RSS) may not have done that well. However, Modi had created such an illusion of a strong and honest government in Gujarat that people were willing to ignore or even forget one of the worst periods under him, that is the state-supported mass slaughter of Muslims in 2001. 

Such was the communal passion aroused by the RSS that people already disgusted with corruption and the inefficiency of the UPA government, heightened by the split amongst the various political parties, that Modi romped home with an overwhelming majority in the Lok Sabha. He emerged as the winner with just 31 per cent of votes and was, of course, greatly helped by corporate funding. That illusion has now been broken and even ardent supporters of Modi now do not place a hundred per cent bet on him winning the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. That is why the effort of Modi is to work out a strategy so as to keep his rivals caught up with the assembly polls. This would ensure that they do not to put a combined pressure on him in the Lok Sabha elections.

This strategy is not constitutionally possible. After the Emergency, the Constitution  (44th Amendment) has provided in Article 83 and Article 172 that the Lok Sabha and state legislatures shall continue for five years from the date appointed for its first meeting and no longer. 

Therefore, the factual situation at present is that it is constitutionally not possible to hold simultaneous polls in May 2019 because it would require to extend the term of state assemblies of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan (by five months), Mizoram (by six months) and Karnataka (by 12 months). This is not constitutionally possible. Of course, the terms of the state assemblies of Haryana and Maharashtra (by 5 five months), Jharkhand (by seven months) could be curtailed as these states have BJP governments. However, the Delhi government which has a term of eight months would not agree to this. 

Punjab and Uttar Pradesh must go to polls in the next two months. Obviously, no one can expect Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal and Kerala (all states where opposition parties are in power) to agree because the terms of their assemblies are up to 2021.  Assam can go to polls in 2019, even though elections are due in 2021, as it is a BJP-ruled state. However, will Modi agree to curtail the term of the assembly in a state where the BJP has come to power for the first time. Non-BJP states like Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, whose terms expire by2021, will never agree to curtail the period of their terms. The Central government, whose term would expire by 2019, cannot continue thereafter without holding fresh elections due in May 2019. However, if Modi is so keen on holding simultaneous polls even in some states, he can hold those by dissolving the Parliament in 2017 and then holding simultaneous polls by. He could, at same time, also dissolve the state assemblies in BJP-ruled states whose terms are not yet over, as mentioned above. If Modi is not willing to do so, then why is he trying cover his government's failure by conjuring up these illusory and undemocratic solutions? 

A greater principle of democracy is involved in holding simultaneous polls of the Parliament and state assemblies, unless by fortuitous circumstances the five-year period of both happens to coincide. This contrived situation, brought up by Modi time and again, has very dangerous implications and is impermissible because it is against the basic structure of our Constitution. 

According to the Supreme Court of India Article 1(1), India is a Union of States which means a federation of States. Our Constitution specifically provides the exclusive list-I, given in the seventh schedule, empowering the Central government which alone can legislate on certain subjects given in the list. States alone can legislate on subjects enumerated in list-II, the Parliament cannot. The state list includes important subjects like agriculture, law and order --- on which only states can legislate and the Centre has no jurisdiction. Both, the Centre and the states, can legislate on subjects of list III.

Obviously, voters have different priorities when voting for the state assemblies and for the Parliament. In Delhi Laws Act, the Supreme Court (1951) specifically held: "The state legislature under our Constitution is not a delegate of the Union Parliament. Both legislatures derive powers from the same Constitution. Within its appointed sphere, the state legislature has plenary powers". 

Modi wants to deny this strategic advantage to the states and weaken decentralisation which is the core of our constitutional jurisprudence.   In the USA, a rather extreme position prevails. Law and medical degrees of one state are not recognised in the rest of the states. They have separate laws for polls for the president, the Senate, the House of Representatives and for various states. Of course, this is an extreme example borne possibly out of the US history, marked by the civil war. We wisely did not go so far because of the distinction between the varying priorities of the Centre and the states. The sooner Modi relinquishes this idea of simultaneous polls, the better it is. This distorts the voters’ sentiment that the government should be close to the people of the area concerned.  

 The writer is a former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court