IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATIONS OF VARIOUS COMMITTEES ON SIMULTANEOUS ELECTIONS

The Election Commission of India in its First Annual report, 1983 recommended holding simultaneous elections to the House of the People and the Legislative Assemblies of States. Simultaneous elections were also recommended by the Law Commission of India in its One Hundred Seventieth Report on Reform of Electoral Laws; Parliamentary Standing committee in its 79th report in 2015, and latest by the Niti Ayog in 2017. The key recommendations around conducting simultaneous elections are as follows:

♤ Advancing elections of some Legislative Assemblies by making necessary orders so that it can be held with the election of Lok Sabha;

♤ The elections to other Legislative Assemblies should be held by making similar adjustments in phases with a view to reducing its frequency until the desired goal of one election for Lok Sabha and to all the Legislative Assemblies simultaneously is achieved;

♤ Passing constitutional amendments that can provide for extending or curtailing the term of one or more Legislative Assemblies say for six months or so wherever it is necessary to achieve the said goal.

♤ However, such amendments to Constitutional or other statutes must be passed on the basis of some agreeable principles, with constitutional and statutory boundaries, which are largely acceptable to various stakeholders - political parties, Governments as well general public/voters:

o Extension of term of a Legislative Assembly should normally be not preferred unless inevitable;

o Curtailing term of a Legislative Assembly should be kept minimum to the extent possible;

♤ An alternative solution could be to hold elections to Lok Sabha/ Legislative Assemblies simultaneously but to withhold the results of elections till after the expiry of term of the Legislative Assembly concerned - the interval not exceeding six months.

♤ Another proposal would be to consider provisions to have all elections, falling due in a year together in a particular period of the year.