Confirming that the ruling BJP-led NDA government at the Centre has been more inclined to outfox the disunited and disparate opposition parties, the Central government on August 31, bowled another googly when it called for a five-day special session of Parliament from September 18 to 22. It was quite unexpected to have a sitting of Parliament just after the monsoon session concluded on August 11. Parliament sessions have witnessed frequent adjournments as both ruling and opposition members created noisy and at times, unruly scenes. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi broadcast the information in a tweet. The summoning of the special session has only sparked speculation over the possible issues to be discussed. One subject that dominated others is the speculation that the Centre was likely to discuss and vote on dissolution of the current Parliament and the declaration of early Lok Sabha elections, possibly by December 2023. Lok Sabha elections are due in May 2024. This speculation is being given further hype by the introduction of the \u2018One Nation, One Election\u2019 bill, proposing simultaneous state and general elections. A committee led by ex-president Ram Nath Kovind has been formed to examine the potential of the \u201cone nation, one election\u201d concept. However, implementing this would require a constitutional amendment and subsequent approval from state assemblies. While not a new concept, having occurred four times in the 1950s and 60s, the current size and voting population of India presents different challenges. There are many takers for the \u2018One Nation, One Election\u2019 proposal and it has been fully backed by NITI Aayog, a government think tank, for simultaneous national and state polls. Also the Law Commission suggested that elections to assemblies whose term ends six months after the Lok Sabha polls could be clubbed together. This means state assemblies whose term end six months after the Lok Sabha polls be clubbed together. States that go to the polls before the Lok Sabha elections include- Chhattisgarh(December 2023),Telangana(December) and Mizoram(December). Those going to the polls in 2024 include Madhya Pradesh(January ) and Rajasthan(January); Andhra Pradesh(April), Arunachal Pradesh(April), Odisha(April) and Sikkim(April). Those that go to the polls after the Lok Sabha elections include- Haryana(October),Maharashtra(October), Jharkhand(November-December) and Jammu and Kashmir. In total, 13 states are scheduled to go to the polls a few months ahead and after the Lok Sabha election and there is speculation that the Centre might call for early elections to parliament either by December or January and club it with assembly elections to the 13 states. Despite the desirability of simultaneous polls, the Lok Sabha secretariat note acknowledged several difficulties. The Election Commission of India(ECI) stated that simultaneous conduct of elections would require large-scale purchase of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines, estimated to cost around Rs. 9284.15 crore. Additionally, these machines would need to be replaced every 15 years, incurring further expenses. Holding simultaneous polls may sound good but it falls apart if a state assembly is dissolved due to constitutional crisis prematurely. In such a case, the state theoretically will have to wait even for more than two or three years before simultaneous polls are held as scheduled. In as far pre-poning Lok Sabha poll, the Centre does not need to propose such a bill since the cabinet can decide. Come September 18 then things will be clear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Confirming that the ruling BJP-led NDA government at the Centre has been more inclined to outfox the disunited and disparate opposition parties, the Central government on August 31, bowled another googly when it called for a five-day special session of Parliament from September 18 to 22. It was quite unexpected to have a sitting of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}