 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I am Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay and you are watching Present Past and the Future. Even before the newly elected Lok Sabha began transacting business, the government called a meeting of political parties to discuss holding parliamentary, state assembly and panchayat elections simultaneously. The slogan of one nation, one pole, has been on the BJP's agenda for two decades or more. In various arguments presented since then, there has been an unstated portrayal of elections as being unnecessary and unnecessary impediment or irritant. Elections are considered as hindering development of the country and an exercise that can be done without or at best hold them quickly and get over the process. To discuss whether the largest democracy in the world can become so dismissive about elections, I am joined by two very powerful independent voices. My first guest is Professor Jagdeep Chokar, wearer of many hats but here in our program as in the capacity of being a citizen activist who spent years trying to improve democracy and governance. My second guest is Ashutosh, well-known public figure who after a small stint in politics is back to where he should have always been there, that is journalism with us. Now like always I will present three thesis or propositions as my viewpoint, basically to open up the entire subject for discussion. And my first thesis is in the discourse pushed by the BJP and other backers of simultaneous polls, the emphasis has been on feasibility or how this can be done and not on its desirability. Now Professor Chokar to begin with you, you had also prepared an excellent working paper for the Hindu Center. You have studied the entire issue of simultaneous election in detail. Now politically why do you think is the BJP pushing this? What is there in it for it? Well not only the BJP I think every political party when it happens to be in a very strong position wants to or has this sometimes latent and sometimes obvious desire to perpetuate its rule. And it is I think with that in view that the current party in power seems to feel that they are now in a state when they can actually control the entire country. If you remember that the original proposal was parliament, state assemblies and panchayats as you rightly said, but over time panchayats have been forgotten. Now the discussion only is on state assemblies. In any case you know panchayat elections. It becomes news only when there is violence and then you can slam the opposition parties. Yes. And therefore that has been very quietly dropped and now nobody talks about it. So the idea is to have control of the parliament and state assemblies so that you can do what you like with the constitution. Ashutosh, now if I ask you you know that we recently had this meeting, so the Congress and the BSP, they decided that they will not go. Immediately you know it created a situation where the BSP and Congress did not come. That means that the big issues of the country which are being damaged in the country, they do not want to take part in it. Politically if we talk, then it was wrong to not go. You will remember that when the GST was going on, then it was called one nation, one market. So this nation word, the association behind this nation word or national word is being done on the whole country that we are doing anything for the nation, we are doing it for the country and so far people have not done anything for the nation and for the nation. The first thing is that the social party, the social party, the Congress party do not have any competition, they do not understand how the nation word is being damaged or the nation word narrative that is being done in this country, they do not have a cut or not. Because till now their politics was either about the nation or the caste, if it was about the country then maybe their politics was not like that. The third thing that is very important is that why is this debate or this narrative is being set. And for that we have to go into the thinking of BJP and RSS. Where they talk about the unitary form of government. And when I talk about the unitary form of government, when I talk about Golwalkar's book, it is also written that one politician, one legislature and one government. If you start defining it. Integral humanism is also the same thing. So you should be a politician at the level of the country. There should be only one parliament and only one government. This means that there is no need for the union that is established. And they feel that these different states, these different parties, in fact, the whole project of making a Hindu state is a huge hindrance in its way. And it is trying to end that diversity in a way. Otherwise I am not ready to believe it. You said that this is happening for two decades. The progress that took place in India after the 19th century, if we talk about the Arctic progress, the middle class of a big 30 crore class that has come in front of us, it happened in the last 25 years. In the development of Turkey, these coalition politics, or the ones that are being chosen again and again, where is the promise? It is not a promise. It is established that if we see the figures of GDP, then in the coalition era it is a very good question. And in fact, India did not have the progress when... From 6th January to 2014, it was established by the coalition government. Whether it was under Congress or in the U.P. 10 years ago, or 6th year before that. If you see that the biggest arctic reform that took place, Narsimha Rao said that he had 235 members in our parliament. That was also a coalition government. And India has made progress. The most poor thing was when there was a party in this country, it was a Congress system. There were also their governments in the state, there were also their governments. We were talking a bit about the history. So, let me actually present my second thesis, which is partly related with the past, and really when the story actually began, as the way they are trying to present the one nation, one pole thing. My second proposition is that when Lok Sabha and assembly elections went out of sync in the late 1960s, it was not a negative development. Instead, it indicated that India's pluralistic policy was emerging out of the shadows of post-colonial politics. Now, this was the kind of politics which gave a huge advantage to the Congress for having been the vanguard of the freedom struggle. Now, this is what I am saying. It is said that 67 is supposed to be the very bad year. This is different. Today, there is a debate on the basis of the facts. First of all, if it goes out of sync, then it happened in Kerala in 1960. In 1977, the Communist Party of India's government came. At that time, the Congress, the Nehru government, destabilized it and made mid-term elections in Kerala in 1960. Second instance, in 1957, the 57th election in Odisha, it created a situation, Professor Chokar, where the Congress did not have a majority. So, it had to form a coalition government with a right-wing party called the Ganadantra Parishad or the Democratic Council. Now, this government also could not last the entire five-year tenure as a result of which mid-term elections were held in 1961. Fair enough. You know, not much of a gap between 61 and 62. But if you are actually trying to debate such a major issue, you cannot say 67 was the bad year. 67 is the problem time when all problems started in this country. What is the problem if there are repeated elections? We have already talked about. First of all, this repeated elections is actually a bogey. Elections happen in one state once in five years. And Lok Sabha election happens in the same state once in five years. So every state... Maybe it gets shortened at times if the government is unstable. That's a... those are exceptions. Average is every state... If a party is unable to run the government, anywhere it will change. It will happen. But I... one assumes that most parties and most governments will last five years. So the constitutional scheme is there is one state assembly election in a state in five years. And there is one Lok Sabha election in a state in every five years. So every state only has two elections every five years. Where is this... every day there is election. I mean, ultimately, there are 29 states. So 29 state assembly elections will happen once in five years. And Lok Sabha... I mean, I don't understand where does this... Every day there is an election that's coming from. Number one. Number two. I mean, I'm saying there is not a plethora of elections. The number of elections is the same. Number two. Elections and development have been made polar opposites. As if elections have been made polar opposites. As if election is, as you rightly said, impediment to development. And if there are elections, development cannot happen. So the best solution then is not to have elections at all. So we should always be working for development. That is what... This is also a bogey. Yeah, you know, Ashutosh... If there is a sentiment, you know, especially... You talked about the middle class. I remember I was a... My political understanding came up in the aftermath of the years around emergency. There is a certain constituency in the country which feels that this democracy is actually a... You know, a very irritating affair. It's better to have a dictatorial and authoritarian kind of a government. What is this fatalist attraction of the middle classes towards some kind of an anti-democratic... I don't think middle class has any problem with the democracy. Middle class doesn't have any problem with the democracy. The problem is with the narrative which the government wants to set. And the kind of control it has over the media. That's where the things come from. So any narrative which wants to come from the top, it comes and it gets into the mind of the people. There is no counter-narrative. There is no way that you can counter this narrative. That's the unfortunate part of it. See, I fully agree with Professor that there is... If you are talking in terms of democracy and the development, and if the priority is the development, then there should not be democracy in this country. But the issue is... The issue is if you see any country which is prospered, developed and became a superpower, almost all the countries had gone through the process of democracy. Whether you take the example of... USA, you take the example of UK, France, Germany, every country. Germany for some time it has experimented differently. So I think this whole narrative is to kill the democratic process in this country. Point number two, I think this election happening all the time, it creates politician and the government always on the toes. No, I think that's a very important point. It always keeps on the toes that you have to deliver. If you do not deliver, you will not come back again. In the last 20 years, if you see, the government which has delivered economically, those government had come back. Like you see in Delhi, Silaadikshad government was for 15 years. In Assam, for 15 years, in the... Even the Manvarn Singh government... It was voted... It was voted back despite 2008, 2006, 11. So that means the people, they want to take the democracy, they believe in democracy, and if any government which is delivering, it's coming back. So I don't understand from where this narrative is coming. This narrative has an ulterior motive. I have no agitation in saying this. So basically what Ashutosh is trying to say, is that there are certain system of checks and balances, which are inbuilt. Even if we look at our entire Constituent Assembly debates, when we had this debate over, whether we should have one house or two houses, Rajesh Abba was basically introduced, primarily with the intention, that legislations and laws passed in a hurry, in a state of passion, should not become permanent laws of this country. That is why the Rajesh Abba was set up to take a more reasoned view of that. Similarly, if we have a state election, being out of sync with the parliament elections, it gives an opportunity to ensure that wave elections do not set the political, do not actually settle things, everything for the next five years. It is possible like for instance, in 84, the elections which were held after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, was a highly unnatural election. No government ever in the past or after that, has ever been able to come to power with such kind of a 400 plus kind of a majority. So, there definitely are unnatural mandates, which needs to be corrected. Which is why you argued in the paper that this is what should be continued, that we should continue to have separation of Lok Sabha and assembly elections, as and when it happens. This is not the only reason. What happened in 1960 or 67 or whenever, was not a deliberate attempt to change the simultaneity of elections. No, it happened because of the... No, no, no, I'll tell you. It happened because of the evolution and maturity of our polity. In the process of evolution and maturity, certain undesirable things also happened. They happened, the elections started happening, but one has to understand that part 16 of the constitution, if I'm right, is on these states. These states have independent, more or less autonomous existence under the constitution. They are constitutional entities to force fit them with the calendar of a larger entity, which is the Lok Sabha, is absolutely unnatural and wrong. And when people say one nation, one election, I often tell people that there is one nation, one election. There is one parliament for the nation and there is one election. So one election does not mean that, you know, every municipality election will also happen. It is not the same thing. Somebody was joking, you know, that why leave out resident welfare associations from the central lot, you might as well have the same thing. After all, that is what you had referred to, you know. The RSS credo is actually a Chalak Anuvartitva, which is follow one leader. So let's have a leader every day. The basic point is, this is a back door attempt to bring in a presidential form of government where the entire authority lies in the president. Right. Now, I have no problem. And the president rules through his proxies in states. That once you are a president, then you take care of everything. I have no problem with the presidential form of government. But my only contention is, if we want to do that, let us say that and discuss that and do that. And let's have a discussion on that. On that. Let's not actually try to bring it to the back. No, no, to say that elections cost money and that money can go into development. I think it is the most painful statement. In fact, we have just touched upon, you know, my third thesis, which I am just going to present, which is that efforts of political parties should be to provide the most effective democracy and not the least expensive. Moreover, no one in any state can be deprived of having a representative government. Ashutosh, this entire argument costs too much money. If in a democracy, elections, you don't spend money for elections or to improve democracy, what are you going to present, you know, spend money on? But I find it, sir. You know, it's a weird debate. It's a question. How much is it being spent? No, no, I want to ask that how much money does it take? The government never tells me that how much is it worth? Excuse me, I will interrupt. People say that it costs so much to run a parliament and the parliament doesn't run properly. It's just a solution. That's exactly what I am saying. Is it worth 1.5 lakh crores to run a parliament? Or is it worth 2 lakh crores? Who is spending it? How do they get it? It must be worth 1,000 crores. And I don't need to take the name of the party because I don't need to take the name of the party. How do they get it? They also need to say it. The second thing is that they get it from the electoral bond. They get it officially, what they get is unofficial. They get it officially from the electoral bond, but they don't get it from the government. You are saying that the bond money, what about the un-bond money? But what you have said is that if the people in this country want to stay alive, then whatever its value is, it must be paid to this country. I mean, money should not be a barrier, money should not be an excuse. You are talking about the presidential farm-up government. You are talking about the presidential farm-up government in this country. I don't have any problem. But in the presidential farm-up government in America, the states in there are more autonomous. They have more residual powers. And the president there is basically a person who seems the most powerful in the world, but America is not the most powerful in the world. He has to compete with the chairmen of the different multinational companies. He has to compete with the different governors of the states. And in fact, governors in the states in America is more powerful. If they want to have that kind of a government, I have no problem with that. But let them say that. I'm saying they don't want to bring a presidential farm-up of the government. They want to, they want to condemn this democracy and the unitary farm-up of the government. That's what I'm saying. There are presidential farms of government of different types. Ashutosh had just mentioned the US. There is also a presidential farm-up government in Turkey. There is also a presidential farm-up government in the Philippines. There are multiple models of presidential farm-up government. There is not one thing. But the point is to prevent any alternative thinking is the objective. I was in a television program on the same issue. And one participant said, the, the, the problem is that even on one nation, one pole, if you are critical of it, if what we are discussing, three of us here, if we actually say it from a wider platform, you'd immediately be depicted as being against development of the country. So are we moving into a situation where, you know, we use these phrases, you know, that we are heading towards becoming an electoral authoritarian system? Yeah, we could be. I mean, electoral or non-electoral. Elections will continue. Yet we are authoritarian. No, no, elections are no election. Authoritative system of government is the objective. But let me also say, I mean, it has been three years when the debate has been raging. And I have been on something like 16 to 20 discussion seven hours. Everywhere people say, at least let us discuss. Why are you objective to discussion? In the DD News, I said recently that I am here only to discuss. I am not saying don't discuss. In a discussion program, you're not supposed to discuss. You're supposed to agree. But nation is subject to discussion. So if you oppose it, that means you're against the nation. I want to focus on one thing. Pranam Mukherjee, when he was a president, he supported one nation, one country. He set this in a presidential election. In the presidential election? In the republic day. In the republic day period, which is written by the government. After demitting office, he said that it is impractical. But he also said that this is non-representative. What he also suggested, and I think a lot of people have also said, the problem is basically with the model code of conduct. We are discussing the model code of conduct. There is no problem with the model code of conduct, sir. Those who have read the model code of conduct know. It says nothing except that every political party will observe the law of the land as it exists. This is all there is. No, it says that the work is closed. You have said it theoretically. We are talking practically. The model code of conduct. The government gave the farmers 6,000 rupees before the election. It didn't even announce that it would be given. It gave it in retrospective effect. So, if you want to validate the model code of conduct, then there is no problem. There is no problem at all. I can tell you in a better way about the model code of conduct. Because I covered it in the TN session. Where is it written in the model code of conduct that the stated policies cannot be implemented if the elections are going on? Absolutely. Secondly, if there is something important to be done, then the model code of conduct doesn't come anywhere. And I remember that there was an issue regarding the agrarian culture policy. Mr. Amiz Gil was the chief election commissioner there. And he took it to the court. The court said that if you want to implement policies, these doles are being given. Give 2000 rupees, 3,000 rupees, 4,000 rupees. The only purpose of which is to influence the citizens for their party's sake. If there are people sitting on the election commission who are like the Gandhari of Patty Bandar. And who have considered the whole country as a traitor. That no one is watching. That you will make the elections of Himachal Pradesh at one time and the elections of Gujarat later. And the doles of 10,000 crore rupees will be given to Gujarat people. At that time, was the election commission sleeping? Or when Rahul Gandhi will get a statement about the binar, then you will remain quiet. And here, for 30 seconds, when the election commission was asked that the third election commissioner who gave a minority opinion, why do you want to publicize it? They say that their life is in danger. Who is in danger? Actually, this time, see that people have been elected. Right now, in October and November, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana are going to be elected. In Delhi, there is a due in February 2020. If there was only one nation, one pole, then okay, the common man party's government is in Delhi, so don't shake it. But your own government, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and... Sir, Raj Sabha, why are you doing it? Why don't you advance it? See, Raj Sabha's government is doing it again and again. They are empty together. So there is no one nation, one pole. There is a technical matter, right? But why are you doing it? Why are you doing it? But, we have done it in a short period of time. We have done it in a short period of time. I'll tell you one more thing. I have written that one nation, one election is not going to happen. We have not done it in the constitution. It is going to be flagged all the time to say that the people who are opposed to it are anti-national. No, we have not done it in the constitution. If I have written today that if all the political parties agree, it will not happen either. Because it will not happen without the constitution. The number of amendments which have to be made is not feasible. Those amendments in totality will be stuck down by the Supreme Court under the basic structure. So this is not going to happen. But it is good to discuss. You wanted to say something. I want to say that without saying anything, the Supreme Court can change the basic structure concept. I hope that Supreme Court will not do that. I think till the time we get any evidence, we should not say that this is what Supreme Court is likely to do. I think we should tell the time that there is... It is within the domain to change it. It is within there. But till the time I do not think that we should flag it. I have no problem. Let them change it. But let them change it. It will happen, it will happen, it will happen, it will happen. It will not happen like this. Well, I think... Thank you. It has been a very fruitful discussion. The problem is that those campaigning for simultaneous polls depict those opposing as being against India's development and progress. From a time when pluralism was a matter of pride, it is all about unitarism, political, ethnic and cultural. One nation is the common prefix. The suffixes change. One people, one culture, one flag, one tax, one election and one verdict. Suddenly diversity is being presented as hurdle to unity and strength lies only being in a single file. We hope this discussion enabled you to understand why simultaneous polls will undermine the federal character of our constitution. Thank you.