Time for One Nation, One Election

The electoral wheel in Bharat never stops spinning. As current round of state polls come to end on Monday evening, the BJP has started preparing for the next round of municipal and Assembly elections in several states.

BJP chief J.P. Nadda discussed the forthcoming civic polls in Delhi and Haryana, and the Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh with party national general secretaries. A day before the end of polling of Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Nadda chaired a meeting of party national general secretaries at the BJP headquarters here on Sunday evening.

Local bodies’ polls in Delhi and Haryana are scheduled for next month, while the Assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh will be held November-December this year. Assembly polls will conclude with voting in 54 seats in nine districts of Uttar Pradesh on Monday and counting of votes will take place on March 10.

For a developing nation like Bharat with scarce resources, the amount of time and resources spent on conducting elections is mind-boggling. Elections at various levels – panchayat, municipal, state, national – keep happening continuously, forcing governments to take their eye off actual governance and divert attention to election fighting. Model code of conduct that kicks in for each election further constraints govt. ability to launch development works. Bureaucrats go into limbo as elections approach, waiting to find out the identity of their new political masters and jockeying for the inevitable transfer flurry that follows.

The money splurged in election campaigns is one issue. The bitterness and divisiveness that elections create, with candidates bad-mouthing each other and trying to woo vested interest groups, is another.

It is high time this electoral circus was rationalized and elections at all levels conducted at one go – One Nation, One Election.

(With IANS inputs)