• Adv. Rajiv Sharma

The basic structure doctrine authored by the Supreme Court establishes the supremacy of the Constitution over the Parliament implying that no amount of legislative support can alter the basic structure of the Constitution. It is precisely this supremacy of the Constitution, which the BJP wants to destroy through the concept of ‘One Nation, One Election’. The BJP knows that once the basic structure doctrine is weakened, it may be able to alter the other basic feature of the Constitution like secularism, social justice and judicial review.

ONOE, a heinous conspiracy to destroy the Constitution

In September this year, the Union Cabinet approved a bizarre and potentially ominous proposal of ‘One Nation, One Election (ONOE), which provides for conducting simultaneous Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections, followed by local body polls, within 100 days. The proposal is based on the injudicious recommendations of Ram Nath Kovind Committee, specially handpicked by the NDA Government.

The proposal is based on an erroneous presumption that simultaneous elections will save some money currently being spent by the Election Commission of India on segregated electoral process. But the reality is that there is no evidence to show that ‘One Nation, One Election’ will reduce expenditure. On the contrary, if implemented, it could lead to an enormous increase in the official expenditure due to logistical issues and possibility of holding mid-term polls to elect legislatures for duration less than five years. Another argument by the protagonists of ‘One Nation, One Election’ is that in staggered elections the Model Code of Conduct remains applicable for an extended period, which eats into the time required for governance. Actually, this problem has arisen only after 2014. The current Prime Minister always remains in an election mode even when there are no elections. He prefers to address political rallies, which wastes the time required for the governance of the country. No Prime Minister in the history of independent India has spent even one fourth of the time in political management that is being spent by the current Prime Minister. Therefore, the governance suffers not because of Model Code of Conduct, which only bars announcement of policy decisions during elections, but due to the fact that the current Prime Minister relishes in taking pot shots at his past and present political adversaries, at all times.

While the stated benefits of ‘One Nation, One Election’ do not exude much confidence, there are many cogent and convincing arguments against the dangerous proposal.Once it is implemented, the focus on regional issues in a diverse and complex country like India will get diluted in the din of the National issues during simultaneous elections. Further, due to the fixed five-year term, the legislatures will become toothless and their power to reign in the executive will be severely compromised. As a result, the states will become nearly inoperative and the idea of India as a ‘union of states’, each one of which is a lot different from the other, could become unsustainable. In fact, the concept of ‘One Nation, One Election’ looks like a sinister attempt to kill the Indian ethos of ‘Unity in Diversity’. Once implemented, it will pave the way for the BJP to further its anti-constitution agenda through their programs like ‘One Nation, One Culture’, ‘One Nation, One religion’, ‘One Nation, One Language’, ‘One Nation, One Dress’ so on and so forth. The BJP activists are already working on their divisive plot to force people to adopt one way of eating. Hence, there is no doubt that the BJP’s latest ploy to impose ‘One Nation, One Election’ is aimed at destroying the idea of unity in diversity, co-existence, tolerance and sharing in the country. TAs stated above, the concept is propounded to distort the Federal structure of the country and to inflict severe blow to the Parliamentary form of government besides adversely impacting the quality of the representation of the people in Legislature.

Apart of all this, the perilous plan to enact ‘One Nation, One Election’ legislation also seems to be aploy to undermine and destroy the basic structure of the Constitution in order to re-write it. It must be understood that before the Constitutional amendment bill to enact the law to facilitate ‘One Nation, One Election’ is passed, at least five Articles of the Constitution namely Articles 83, 85, 172, 174 and 356 besides some provisions of Representation of People’s Act, 1951are required to be amended. This means that the contours of the Parliamentary form of democracy as enshrined in the Constitution shall stand altered after these amendments are passed by the Parliament. The readers are aware that both the Parliamentary form of the Government and the concept of ‘Unity in Diversity’ are the basic structure of our Constitution, which cannot be altered by the Parliament in view of a judgment in Kesvananda Bharti case given by a 13 judge Bench of the Supreme Court in year 1973. This judgment says that the basic structure of the Constitution cannot be altered or amended by the Parliament, even if all the MPs vote in favour of such amendment. Hence, basic structure doctrine establishes the supremacy of the Constitution over the Parliament implying that no amount of legislative support can alter the basic structure of the Constitution. It is precisely this supremacy of the Constitution, which the BJP wants to destroy through the concept of ‘One Nation, One Election’. The BJP wants to achieve its anti-constitution design by altering the current parliamentary form of democracy through the amendments in aforesaid five articles of the Constitution, providing for fixed maximum duration and powers to dissolve the Parliament house and state legislatures, before presenting an amendment bill to enact ‘One Nation, One Election’ law. The BJP knows that once the basic structure doctrine is weakened, it may be able to alter the other basic feature of the Constitution like secularism, social justice and judicial review.

That is no secret that the BJP is still not comfortable with the idea of current form of Constitutional democracy. This is clear from their ideological moorings emanating from the founders of the RSS, who always considered Indian Constitution as a document which is disconnected from the indigenous traditions and is based on liberal western ideas. The views expressed by Shri Jagdip Dhankar, Vice President of India in January 2023 has already rung the alarm bell among all those who believe in the supremacy of the Constitution over Parliament. The Vice President questioned the basic structure doctrine when he said “it has set a bad precedent and if any authority questions Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution, it will be difficult to say we are a democratic nation”. He criticized the Apex Court by saying “I do not subscribe to the Kesavananda Bharati case ruling that Parliament can amend the Constitution but not its basic structure”.

Therefore, the people of the country need to take note of the hidden agenda of the BJP in floating the proposal of ‘One Nation, One Election’ before the country. The eerie proposal has not been brought to save a few lakh rupees. It is certainly not being promoted to reduce the extended period of Model Code of Conduct associated with the elections. In reality, the proposal is a heinous conspiracy to weaken the supremacy of the Constitution over the Parliament in order to further flatten the cherished ideas of unity in diversity, coexistence, socio-economic justice, tolerance, pluralism and secularism enshrined in the Constitution. The country and its enlightened people need to remain alert and pro-active to save the Constitution and the country from the onslaught of the BJP.

The author is a Chief Spokesperson, Chandigarh Pradesh Congress Committee.