One Nation, One Election: Testing the Limits of India’s Federal Constitution
Author: Meenakshi Tripathi
College: SGT University
Course: BBA LLB, 2nd Year
To the Point
“One Nation, One Election” (ONOE) is the proposal to hold elections to the Lok Sabha and all State Legislative Assemblies at the same time, instead of the current system where different states go to the polls in different years. The idea is being pushed through the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024, along with the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024, both introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2024 and currently before a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). The government’s stated reasons are simple: frequent elections are expensive, they repeatedly disrupt governance under the Model Code of Conduct, and they keep the country in a near-permanent campaign mode. But the method chosen to achieve this goal, rewriting several core provisions of the Constitution that govern the tenure and dissolution of legislatures, raises a set of constitutional questions that go well beyond administrative convenience. This article looks at those questions in plain terms: does ONOE cross the line that the Constitution itself is not allowed to cross, and if so, where exactly is that line drawn?
Use of Legal Jargon
A few terms recur throughout this discussion and are worth defining upfront in simple language.
Basic structure doctrine refers to the rule, laid down by the Supreme Court, that Parliament can amend any part of the Constitution under Article 368, but it cannot use that power to destroy or alter the Constitution’s core identity, its “basic structure.” Federalism, democracy, free and fair elections, and the rule of law have all been recognised as part of this basic structure at different points.
Federalism describes the division of power between the Union government and the state governments, each with its own sphere of authority. India’s federalism is often described as “quasi-federal” because the Union has more power than a typical federation, but state autonomy, including the freedom to hold its own elections on its own timeline, is still treated as constitutionally protected.
Article 82A is the new provision proposed by the 129th Amendment Bill. It would let the President notify an “appointed date,” after which all State Assemblies elected would serve only until the next Lok Sabha election, regardless of when they were actually elected, so that every assembly’s term ends at the same time.
Articles 83, 172, and 356 are the existing provisions being amended or affected. Article 83 fixes the five-year term of the Lok Sabha; Article 172 does the same for state assemblies; Article 356 allows the Union government to impose President’s Rule in a state when its constitutional machinery breaks down.
Constructive vote of no-confidence is a procedural safeguard under which a no-confidence motion against a government can only succeed if the same motion also names a replacement government, preventing a legislature from being left without any government at all, an idea the Kovind Committee report drew on while designing safeguards for ONOE.
The Proof
The single biggest constitutional objection to ONOE is that it disturbs the basic structure of the Constitution by weakening federalism. In *S.R. Bommai v. Union of India*, the Supreme Court held in clear terms that federalism is part of the basic structure and cannot be abolished even through a constitutional amendment. Critics of ONOE argue that forcing every state assembly to end its term in sync with the Lok Sabha, regardless of when that state’s voters actually elected it, effectively erases the independent political cycle of the states and folds state elections into a single, Union-dominated electoral calendar. Supporters respond that synchronising election dates does not, by itself, take away any state’s legislative or executive powers, and that the amendment route under Article 368 is itself a constitutionally valid way of changing even how elections are timed, so long as the states’ functional autonomy is otherwise untouched.
A second concern involves what happens to a state assembly that collapses partway through the shared five-year cycle, for instance if a coalition government loses its majority two years into a five-year term. Under the Kovind Committee’s design, rather than allowing that state to hold a fresh, full-term election, the shorter, “unexpired term” option is favoured, meaning a new assembly (or a period of President’s Rule under Article 356) would only last until the next synchronised election date. This raises the risk of longer and more frequent use of President’s Rule, which the Constitution treats as an emergency measure, not a routine one, and which the Supreme Court has repeatedly cautioned against overusing.
A third concern is institutional. Under Article 324, superintendence of elections is constitutionally vested in the Election Commission of India (ECI), an independent constitutional body. Under the proposed Article 82A(4)-(5), however, it would be the ECI acting on a recommendation, effectively implementing a scheme largely designed by a government-appointed committee, that decides whether a state’s election can be deferred. Critics argue that a major redesign of how frequently the country’s most basic democratic exercise, voting, happens, should not rest primarily on a committee whose members were selected by the Union Cabinet rather than through a broader, cross-party constitutional process.
A fourth, more procedural point concerns ratification. Article 368 requires that amendments touching certain entrenched provisions, generally those affecting the federal structure, such as the powers of the Supreme Court, High Courts, or the manner of election of the President, be ratified by at least half the state legislatures, not passed by Parliament alone. The government’s position is that Articles 83 and 172 do not fall within this ratification requirement because they do not directly touch the federal distribution of legislative or executive power between the Union and the states. Legal commentators are divided: some agree that the amendment is procedurally valid as a Parliament-only exercise, while others argue that a change altering the fundamental timing and rhythm of every state election is precisely the kind of change the ratification safeguard was designed to catch, even if it does not literally fall within the entrenched clauses listed in the proviso to Article 368(2).
Abstract
This article examines the constitutional challenges surrounding the “One Nation, One Election” proposal, currently before a Joint Parliamentary Committee in the form of the Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill, 2024. It explains, in plain legal language, the mechanism proposed by the Kovind Committee report, the new Article 82A, and the amendments required to Articles 83, 172, and 356. It then evaluates the central objection raised by constitutional scholars and opposition parties: that synchronising every state’s electoral cycle with the Lok Sabha undermines the federal basic structure recognised in *S.R. Bommai v. Union of India*, weakens the independence of the Election Commission under Article 324, and risks extended, non-emergency use of President’s Rule under Article 356. The article also considers the government’s counter-position that timing elections differently from state autonomy over legislative and executive power, and that Article 368 permits such an amendment through ordinary parliamentary majority, without requiring state ratification. The article concludes that while ONOE does not, on its face, abolish federalism, its cumulative effect on state electoral autonomy, the ECI’s institutional independence, and the routine use of President’s Rule raises genuine and, as yet, judicially untested basic structure concerns that are likely to reach the Supreme Court once the amendment is enacted.
Case Laws
Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973) 4 SCC 225: This is the case that first established the basic structure doctrine, holding that Parliament’s amending power under Article 368 does not extend to destroying the Constitution’s basic features. Every subsequent basic structure argument, including those made against ONOE, traces back to this ruling.
S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994) 3 SCC 1: The Supreme Court held that federalism is part of the Constitution’s basic structure and laid down strict limits on the misuse of President’s Rule under Article 356, requiring that its use be justified by an actual breakdown of constitutional machinery, not political convenience. This case is the anchor for the argument that ONOE’s design, which may increase reliance on Article 356 for states whose assemblies dissolve early, needs careful constitutional scrutiny.
Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain (1975) Supp SCC 1: The Supreme Court struck down a constitutional amendment that sought to place the Prime Minister’s election beyond judicial review, holding that free and fair elections form part of the basic structure. This precedent is relevant because it shows that the basic structure doctrine extends specifically into the domain of elections, not only into federalism generally.
Kuldip Nayar v. Union of India (2006) 7 SCC 1: The Court upheld Parliament’s wide latitude in structuring electoral processes, provided the essential democratic character of elections is preserved, a precedent that supporters of ONOE cite to argue that changing the timing of elections is well within permissible legislative and constitutional amendment power.
Conclusion
“One Nation, One Election” sits at an uncomfortable intersection of administrative logic and constitutional principle. The efficiency argument, that fewer, synchronised elections save money, reduce disruption, and free up security and administrative machinery, is genuinely persuasive on its own terms. But efficiency has never been the sole test for constitutional validity in India; the basic structure doctrine exists precisely to stop administratively convenient changes from quietly eroding the Constitution’s foundational commitments to federalism and democratic accountability. Whether ONOE ultimately survives judicial scrutiny will likely depend not on the idea of simultaneous elections itself, which is not new to India and existed without controversy between 1951 and 1967, but on the specific mechanism chosen to sustain it, particularly how extensions of President’s Rule are handled, and how much independent discretion the Election Commission genuinely retains under the amended framework. Until the Bill is enacted and inevitably tested before the Supreme Court, ONOE remains less a settled reform than a live constitutional question, one that student researchers, practitioners, and the Court itself will need to keep watching closely as the JPC’s report and the eventual amendment take final shape.
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