Opinion Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Why the arguments for and against One Nation One Election are flawed

Second, it is not clear why such a proposal necessarily entails an impatience with the clutter of democratic politics. It still takes elections seriously. Yes, there are elites who might be impatient with the so-called clutter. But the proposal by itself has no such implication. It seems that many of the critics seem to want to reduce democracy just to staggered elections (not even the number, since the number will remain similar), and partisan competition. But democracy requires much more. It requires the formation of considered public opinion, civil society mobilisation, the matching of public accountability to time horizons of policies. The most considered challenge with frequent elections is that we operate only in one mode of our democratic being — the mode of partisanship. ONOE might actually be good for social movements, since one of the ways in which our democracy has been impoverished is that we have let partisanship colonise democracy all the way down. Elections are one mode, and their essence is not just voter accountability but partisanship. It is at least as likely that other modes of mobilisation and accountability can emerge if we are not under the constant shadow of partisanship. We actually might get other, more creative forms of democratic clutter.

Third, it is not clear why ONOE necessarily entails presidentialism, or that it will “nationalise” state elections. People worry that if national and state elections are held together, somehow national issues will dominate. In part this claim is based on ambiguous evidence from a few states which experience simultaneous elections with the Centre. But there is a fallacy of composition. It is not clear that if simultaneous elections were to happen nationally, the same result would follow. Moreover, there is an anti-democratic elitism in this argument, as if voters are not intelligent enough to distinguish local versus national issues or candidates. In fact, national leaders may have to rely more on local collaborators since they cannot spend as much time in each state, as they can do now when elections are staggered. They could also have to worry that local anger can rebound nationally, if they don’t pay attention. Our current system did not prevent semi-presidentialism. Whether ONOE turns presidential is vastly under-determined as is whether the direction of influence will be from national to local or vice versa.

Fourth, there is a worry that this signifies the diminution of the power of the representative, and hence, the dignity of legislative assemblies like Parliament. This argument is perplexing. For one thing, the anti-defection Bill already effectively killed the power of the individual representative and made them creatures of their party. Second, no-confidence motions almost never succeed. Since Independence, of the 27 motions, arguably only one succeeded. State legislatures are already defunct as institutions of accountability. The dignity of Parliament has to be restored, but again ONOE may be orthogonal to it. There is the tricky issue of what happens if a government falls midway. You could argue that if you bring a government down, it is more honest to have to face an election for the remaining duration of the assembly. This is actually more democratically accountable than relying on backroom deals. Having an occasional assembly term be for less than five years so that the clock can be reset might not be aesthetically symmetrical, but there is nothing undemocratic about it.

Scepticism about some of the criticisms of the ONOE proposal on the grounds that it is anti-democratic does not mean that the arguments for the proposal are strong. It is just that many of the criticisms seem to employ the same formalistic logic the government does. One election equals lower expenditure. It equals more national unity, and more efficiency. But the critics also seem to fall into a similar formalism: Staggered elections equal diversity and more democracy. Critics of the proposal are right in one respect — there are lots of small reforms in elections, in Parliament that are more low-risk and have a high beneficial impact for democracy. These should be tried first.

Moving to ONOE will be constitutionally cumbersome. It is actually not clear that it will reduce expenditure, especially if we think of expenditure by candidates. It is not clear it will reduce the pressures for “fiscal populism” (this should be less of a worry for us than oligarchic power, but let us leave that aside for now). In a competitive political system, if there is no consensus on norms, all parties will continue to outbid each other in what they offer the electorate, no matter when the election. And clearly the biggest risk of the proposal is not having any electoral mechanism for expressing discontent for a full five years.

There is one kind of democratic clutter that it would be good to have more of — more empowered local governments. More than frequent elections, one of the things holding India back is the state of local governments, empowered panchayats or municipal bodies. These elections are fiercely contested but have never had the dignity or investment they deserve. They need major reform. But it is not clear whether ONOE is a panacea or apocalypse for democracy. It may be quite beside the point. Democracy needs an imagination beyond the timing of elections.

The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express