New Delhi: The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on One Nation, One Election (ONOE), chaired by BJP MP P.P. Chaudhary, Thursday heard detailed presentations from economists Arvind Panagariya and Surjit Bhalla, both of whom strongly argued in favour of simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies.
Panagariya, Chairman, 16th Finance Commission, at the key meeting highlighted that India witnesses 13 rounds of elections in a five-year cycle, with one held on average every 4.5 months.
He recalled that during the 1957 polls, the Constitution framers had allowed premature dissolution of certain Assemblies to hold simultaneous elections with the Lok Sabha.
He argued that if the framers had anticipated today’s continuous cycle of polls, they would likely have preferred an arrangement similar to the one envisaged in the 129th Constitutional Amendment Bill.
Repeated enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), he said, disrupts policymaking, procurement, and reform implementation, while frequent elections delay even constitutional bodies like the Finance Commission.
“In contrast, the once-in-five-years election model offers a longer and clearer policy horizon for both state and central governments, lowering uncertainty and creating stability that encourages private capital formation,” he noted.
He also pointed to large academic evidence that hints at a rise in government spending before elections, leading to a higher fiscal deficit; this is because the government expands fiscal spending to boost short-term growth.
Simultaneous elections, he stressed, would provide policy stability, reduce subsidy burdens, and remove hurdles states often place on Union-level reforms during poll season.
Echoing him, leading economist and former Executive Director at the IMF, Surjit Bhalla, said the problem lay not in Lok Sabha elections being conducted every five years. It is, he pointed out, “the repeated state elections that are of concern.”
He asserts that the imposition of MCC also matters more for state elections and not as much for the Union due to its structured and fixed frequency for Lok Sabha elections.
“…Non-simultaneous elections are expensive and a luxury we can no longer afford,” he said, and further added that, “…reduced frequency of elections under ONOE will lead to a reduction in violence.”
Bhalla noted that elections increase violence and impose financial as well as opportunity costs on migrant workers.
Both experts opined that ONOE would strengthen democracy by reducing instability and fostering reforms.
IANS
