One nation, one election: Kovind Panel gave Reports on the Matter!

Only a couple of months have left for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In this situation , a committee on ‘One Nation One Election’, which was led by former President Ram Nath Kovind submitted a report to the present President Droupadi Murmu. The report recommends of holding simultaneous parliamentary, assembly and local body polls in the country in 2029. They has also suggested that bunching the elections together will be very cost-effective. This will also help to save the economy from any problem like, conducting frequent polls.

No more frequent polls: there is One nation, and there will be one election!

Apart from former president Ramnath Kovind, the panel also has members like Home Minister Amit Shah, former leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, former finance commission chairman N K Singh, former Lok Sabha secretary general Subhash Kashyap and senior advocate Harish Salve. The Leader of the Congress Lok Sabha,  Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was also got selected as a member of this panel but he declined to be part of the panel . “I have no hesitation whatsoever in declining to serve on the committee whose terms of reference have been prepared in a manner to guarantee its conclusions. It is, I am afraid, a total eyewash,” Adhir Ranjan had said in a letter to the Union home minister Amit Shah.

Although this is not a completely new concept for thia nation. India had held Lok Sabha and Assembly elections prior to 1967 — in 1951-52, 1957, 1962 and 1967. But this got stopped when some of the state Assemblies and Lok Sabha got dissolved before of their conclusions. The Report includes total 18,626 pages, and it is an outcome of extensive consultations with stakeholders, experts and research work of 191 days, since its constitution on September 2, 2023.