A national poll will cripple federalism

From the ‘Land of gems (Manipur) to God’s own country (Kerala), from the Land of kings (Rajasthan) to the Paradise on Earth (Kashmir), India is endowed with the most enchanting and diverse range of cultures and history which has drawn people from far and wide over the ages.

Decades ago, the Mahatma wrote that ‘Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.’

So is the one-nation-one poll proposal being vigorously pursued by the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, the best way to foster unity in a country with more than a thousand languages, 10,000 sub-cultures and a heterogeneous population, which also makes it so hauntingly attractive?

There is obviously more than what meets the eye and a sinister political agenda at work behind this hasty move for which the Centre has even formed a panel headed by former president Ram Nath Kovind to examine its feasibility.

It is obviously not just about the thousands of crores the Centre spends on parliament elections or the hundreds of crores the holding of a state poll entails; and it is also not about getting rid of the tiresome exercise of holding polls frequently whenever a government loses its majority.

A least 10 of the 28 states in the country are ruled by regional outfits which include the Shinde Sena which is in alliance with the BJP in Maharashtra.

There are politically significant states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar among the ten which have not given room to national parties like the Congress and BJP to ride over them.

Bihar and Tamil Nadu were once Congress bastions but over the course of years, as regional aspirations grew, parties catering to these needs sprung up and won the public mandate.

It goes to show that people have huge trust in these outfits which are intensely focused on regional and statelevel issues rather than distant national goals.

What has endeared them to the people is their ability to go down to the grassroots and ensure development and swift responses to native demands.

Now comes the big question: Is a simultaneous election in which national issues will inevitably take centrestage making national-level players loom large over state-specific outfits, the best way to achieve the ‘unity in diversity’ which Gandhi spoke of?

And how can people of a state like Tamil Nadu where the burning issues are the woes of paddy growers, the NEET row or the industrial climate, think on the same lines as their counterparts in Punjab, where drug abuse, unemployment and soil exploitation dominate the political scene?

Over the past few years, there have been subtle attempts at moving toward a unitary rather than a federal system of governance with attempts to impose Hindi, a Uniform Civil Code and a National Education Policy ignoring regional sentiments, very much part of this agenda.

Leaders of the BJP know that they are stuck in a time warp and have been unable beyond the north and gain a foothold in the south - except in Karnataka where they have now lost ground.

An all-encompassing national poll where state issues get shadowed and state leaders lose out to national leaders in the big game to grab attention, could be the best bet for a party like the BJP to reap a windfall in states where it has hitherto been unable to move a step forward.

But is the subsuming of local sentiments the best way to move forward on the path of development for an extremely diverse nation like ours?

Is the simultaneous poll concept a clever strategy to ease out regional outfits and ultimately ensure the concentration of power in the hands of a few at the Centre?

Diversity and the unique set of needs and aspirations it gives birth to, cannot be wished away in the name of a single poll - something those in power at the Centre will have to realise sooner than later.