2024: Govt moves ahead with simultaneous polls plan; India holds largest democratic exercise

PTI, Dec 26, 2024, 11:55 AM IST

New Delhi: India created a world record in 2024 as 64.2 crore voters, including 31.2 crore women, participated in the Lok Sabha elections and the year also saw the government taking a major step on electoral reform by bringing in a bill for conducting simultaneous elections to the lower House and state assemblies.

Elections were held in Jammu and Kashmir after a decade and new governments were elected in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand during the year.

The voting period for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, spread over 44 days, was the second longest after the first parliamentary elections of 1951-52 that lasted for more than four months.

The shortest voting period for a general election in the country was in 1980 and it was just four days.

The total days of the electoral process this time, from the announcement of the polls by the Election Commission till counting of votes, was 82.

The Election Commission announced the schedule for the Lok Sabha polls on March 16, a day after a high-level committee headed by former president Ram Nath Kovind came out with its much-anticipated report on simultaneous polls.

While the Kovind panel had suggested holding simultaneous polls to Lok Sabha, state assemblies and local bodies — municipalities and panchayats — in a phased manner, the Union Cabinet “as a first step” decided to go for only Lok Sabha and assembly polls together.

The Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill, along with the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill were introduced in Lok Sabha on December 17 by Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal after a nearly 90-minute debate, followed by a division of votes –“ the first step towards completion of BJP’s long-cherished dream.

While the first bill seeks to amend the Constitution and would need support of two-third members present and voting, the second is an “ordinary” bill to align the terms of Puducherry, Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir legislative assemblies with other assemblies to hold simultaneous polls.

The government would require a two-thirds majority for the passage of the Constitution amendment bill in both the Houses in separate votes -“ numbers it does not enjoy in Parliament currently.

The bills have since been referred to a joint committee of the two Houses for in depth examination and wider consultations.

The 39-member panel will meet on January 8 for the first time.

With the Lok Sabha election held in peak summers, it had its drawback. Nearly 50 polling personnel died due to heat-related issues during the exercise.

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar later said the biggest learning from elections was that poll process should be completed before summer.

During the poll process, several allegations were levelled against the poll authority — refusing a level-playing field and fudging voter turnout data. Questions were also raised, once again, on the electronic voting machine. But the Supreme Court again asserted that the machines cannot be manipulated or hacked and were more reliable as compared to paper ballots.

The EC had hit out, saying “fake” and “mischievous” narratives were spread to sway the general elections and sought proof from the opposition to back its claim that district magistrates were influenced to vitiate the poll process.

“You cannot spread a rumour and bring everyone under a cloud of suspicion,” CEC Kumar had said, citing opposition claims on faulty electoral rolls, the efficacy of EVMs, voter turnout and the counting process.

“There is a pattern, there is a design, I’m not saying it’s a toolkit. But there is a design,” the CEC said, adding that cases pending for years were raked up just four days before the first phase of polling.

During the poll process, there were various memes doing rounds on social media, describing the Election Commission as ‘laapata gentlemen’ amid allegations that the poll watchdog did little to curb model code violations by the ruling dispensation.

CEC Kumar asserted that he and fellow commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Sing Sandhu were “never out” and were “always here”.