The Hidden Political Agenda Behind One Nation One election

The election commission of India expressed its readiness to roll out one nation one election if the government decides to do so. Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be hell-bent on holding simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and State legislatures.

Political parties are increasingly reconciling to such an inevitability realizing the Modi style of functioning. With BJP running a sizeable number of state governments and given the pusillanimity of the regional parties, a constitutional amendment to this effect may not face a big hurdle. Why is BJP so adamant? Reciting purported benefits is only to camouflage the real political agenda.
 
The BJP runs cold-blooded politics and works with a killer instinct to control the reins of power. The saffron leaders unhesitantly made no bones of this. 

The party believes that congress is on a terminal decline. Though these claims may be exaggerated, the fact remains is that the grand old party is reduced to larger regional party status. Meanwhile, several regional parties have emerged as formidable political players in their states.

Some states like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh are witnessing polarisation between two contending regional parties. RJD, TMC, AAP, BJD, Shiv Sena, SP, etc, have become principal challengers to the saffron surge in the respective states.

The BJP finds it increasingly difficult to win the state elections with a national political narrative, especially when a strong regional narrative exists. BJP’s abysmal performance in Andhra Pradesh illustrates this.

The saffron party has fared much better in the Lok Sabha elections in states like Telangana, Odisha, and Delhi when compared to the Assembly elections even when it is confronted with strong regional players. 

The BJP lost Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh assembly elections to congress and the party swept the subsequent Lok Sabha elections. Thus, BJP hopes to capture power at the national and state level with an emotive national political narrative that combines religion and nationalism.

The party believes that the strong regional sentiment that acts as a big impediment to its surge can be defeated with this strategy. The effective way to implement such a strategy is to hold the elections to Lok Sabha and State Assembly across the nation at the same time. 

The BJP is ideologically committed to obliterating India’s linguistic and cultural diversity, which remains a major obstacle to its Hindi-Hindu ideological offensive. Thus, the highly centralised polity is at the crux of saffron ideological project. GST, Motor Vehicle Amendment Act, RTI amendment act, Dam safety act, Central Electricity act, National Medical Commission act, New Education Policy, and now the new farm laws, etc, are only a few examples of its anti-federal political agenda executed with remarkable alacrity. One Nation One Election is yet another attempt to herald a unitary political character that promotes right-wing socio-political aggrandisement. 

By Prof K Nageshwar

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