Elections: One Nation One Election

What is One Nation One Election?

Think of a school that holds a separate exam every month for a different class. Teachers are always busy invigilating and never get time to teach. Holding all exams in one week frees up the rest of the year. That is the main idea behind ONOE.

Today, some state is almost always in election season. While an election is on, the Model Code of Conduct, which means a set of rules from the Election Commission that stops governments from announcing new schemes during polls, freezes many decisions.

How did India lose the common cycle?

The first four general elections, in 1951-52, 1957, 1962 and 1967, were held together with most Assembly polls. Then several State Assemblies were dissolved early in 1968 and 1969, and the Lok Sabha itself was dissolved early, leading to the 1971 election. After that, each state moved on its own clock.

Dissolved here means the House is ended before its five-year term is over, so a fresh election must be held.

Who has studied it?

• Law Commission, 170th Report (1999): suggested going back to one election for the Lok Sabha and all Assemblies.
• Parliamentary Standing Committee (2015) and a NITI Aayog discussion paper (2017) also examined the idea.
• High-Level Committee chaired by former President Ram Nath Kovind: set up on 2 September 2023. It gave its 18,626-page report on 14 March 2024. The Union Cabinet accepted it on 18 September 2024.

What did the Kovind committee recommend?

• Two steps. Step one: hold Lok Sabha and Assembly elections together. Step two: hold municipal and panchayat elections within 100 days of that.
• One voter list. A single electoral roll and voter ID for all three levels. Because this touches the states’ power over local body polls, it would need approval from at least half the states, which is called ratification.
• If a House falls early. If a government loses a no-confidence vote or the House is hung (no party or group has a majority), a fresh election is held only for the unexpired term, meaning the years left in the five-year cycle.

What does the 129th Amendment Bill say?

• New Article 82A: the President notifies an “appointed date”, the date of the first sitting of the Lok Sabha after a general election. Every Assembly elected after that date ends its term with that Lok Sabha.
• Articles 83 and 172: if the Lok Sabha or an Assembly is dissolved early, the new House only serves the rest of the five years.
• Article 327: Parliament’s power to make election laws will include “simultaneous elections”.
• Escape valve: if the Election Commission feels an Assembly poll cannot be held with the rest, it can ask the President, who can order that poll for a later date.

A second Bill, the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024, applies the same plan to Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir, which are Union Territories with their own legislatures.

Worked example of the “unexpired term”. Say the common cycle runs 2034 to 2039 and one state’s government falls in 2036. The new Assembly is elected for only about three years, until 2039, so the state rejoins the common cycle.

Where does it stand now?

Both Bills were introduced in the Lok Sabha on 17 December 2024 and sent to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on 19 December 2024. A JPC is a committee with members from both Houses that studies a Bill in detail before the vote. Its chair is P.P. Chaudhary. On 29 July 2026 the Lok Sabha gave the JPC time until the last week of the Winter Session 2026.

In October 2026, the Supreme Court declined a proposed meeting between judges and the JPC. It said the amendment “might become a subject matter of Judicial Review”, which means the Court may later have to decide if it is valid, so judges should not discuss it in advance.

To pass, a constitutional amendment under Article 368 needs a special majority: a majority of the total members of each House and two-thirds of those present and voting.

Arguments for and against

What UPSC asks: the Articles involved, the Kovind recommendations and a balanced “for and against”. A likely Mains angle: can simultaneous elections fit with federalism and accountability?