With a move by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, discussion and debate on One Nation, One Election has started across the country. The Central Government has called a special session of Parliament from 18 to 22 September and has directed that all senior officials should remain in Delhi during the Parliament session. Usually the government gives such instructions only in the context of some major incident. Due to this, speculations are being made that the Central Government may make a big political move to weaken the opposition alliance INDIA in view of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. In such a political strategy, One Nation, One Election can be effective in breaking opposition unity.
If Lok Sabha and Assembly elections are held at the same time in the country, then there is a deep and big fear that local issues will be weakened in the elections. Generally the issues of Lok Sabha and state assembly elections are different. While national issues dominate the Lok Sabha elections, local issues and local equations come into play in the Assembly elections.
National parties raise national issues, while local and regional parties raise local issues. It also often happens that the issues and election promises for the same party are different in both the elections. In such a situation, there is a possibility that due to simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections across the country, regional parties will not be able to raise local issues strongly.
It is also feared that regional parties will not be able to compete with national parties in terms of election expenditure and election strategy. Assembly elections are deeply linked to local issues and local voters. Therefore, in case of simultaneous elections, all the parties will have to make separate manifestos, election promises and election strategies at the national and regional levels. This will require a lot of funds, in which regional parties may prove weak.
According to experts, the game plan of One Nation One Election can prove beneficial for national parties, especially BJP and Congress, because they may have to make the same efforts across the country. At the same time, most of their issues will be nationwide and BJP-Congress will be at odds with each other, but on the other hand, Congress will also be afraid that its allies may get angry with this. However, no formal statement has come from any party on this.
The opposition coalition INDIA currently consists of 28 parties. Among them, Congress, CPI(M) and AAP are the only national parties. The remaining 25 are all regional and local parties. CPI (M) and AAP may have got the status of a national party, but both of them are more or less in the status of a regional party. Apart from this, the parties of this alliance may seem united in the fight against the Center but there is a mutual tussle between them in the states.
In such a situation, when the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections will be held together, then the gulf of political enmity between these parties may widen further. The Modi government and BJP want to take advantage of this because in all the surveys it is also coming to the fore that BJP and NDA may get less seats in 2024 as compared to 2019. Hence, BJP cannot win more seats without splitting the opposition alliance. In such a situation, if the central government brings the bill of One Nation One Election in the Parliament, then all the 28 parties of INDIA alliance can oppose it, but NDA has majority in Lok Sabha, where it can pass it.
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