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The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has expressed its views to the High-Level Committee on One Nation, One Election (ONOE), supporting simultaneous elections that would synchronise the electoral cycles at the central and state levels.
CII's view was based on the economic benefits of streamlining the electoral process that would enhance governance efficiency and foster economic development. "The CII has been recommending simultaneous elections in India since 2012. In fact, India started out with simultaneous elections, with three consecutive general elections being held in 1957, 1962, and 1967. Since then, the multiplicity of state elections has been growing, with the number of elections being as high as 9 in 2014-15 and 8 in three successive years from 2017-18 to 2019-20," as per a press release from the Confederation of Indian Industry. Asynchronous multiple elections lead to frequent disruptions in policymaking and administration, leading to uncertainty about the government's policies. It also affects the working of the government due to its officials being roped in for election duties. Investment decisions by the private sector tend to slow down prior to the elections. "Further, it leads to delays in project implementation as the Model Code of Conduct gets imposed. Asynchronous elections entail a significant economic cost resulting from the loss of one day of productive work due to holidays on election days, voter travel from their place of work, as well as the cost of delayed payments to projects," the release stated. Simultaneous elections, thus, offer a propitious solution by effectively reducing project implementation delays and a likely cost savings of approximately half the total expenses incurred by the central and state governments in administering elections. In addition, it also helps to avoid the loss of productive mandays. "In wake of the numerous benefits it offers, CII reiterates its stance of advocating the implementation of simultaneous elections, which it had proffered in 2012 too, as part of its Task Force on Electoral Reforms," as per the release. Specifically, CII suggests that a single-stage simultaneous election cycle every five years or a two-stage simultaneous election cycle with a gap of 2.5 years can help in improving India's economic and governance landscape. "The High-Level Committee (HLC) on the One Nation, One Election, chaired by Ram Nath Kovind, former President of India, held its fifth meeting in its office in Jodhpur Officers' Hostel New Delhi, today. The meeting was attended by NK Singh, former Chairman, of 15th Finance Commission, Dr Subhash C Kashyap, former Secretary General, Lok Sabha, and Sanjay Kothari, former Chief Vigilance Commissioner," as per the release. The delegation from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), comprising R Dinesh, President, Sanjiv Puri, President Designate, and Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, made a presentation before the committee in which the views of the industry on ONOE and its impact were highlighted, after which they presented a formal memorandum. (ANI)
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