It seems impossible to reverse the unimaginable progress towards centralization of executive power, programs and electoral agenda reflected in the rush to get legislative approval for the Narendra Modi 0.3 government’s “one nation-one election” blueprint. With the anti-BJP opposition and a scattering of voices within the ruling NDA, most of them intertwined, the proposed constitutional amendment bill will be approved by a tame Parliament that has learned to yield to the will of the people. Executive minorities, especially Muslims, in the person of a prime minister who claims to have a direct relationship with both God and the Hindu majority, ignoring religious diversity.
Using the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in the recent Maharashtra elections and the party’s third term victory in Haryana, the Modi government has effectively overcome the numerical deficit for the Lok Sabha 2024 elections. The fact that the BJP does not have a majority on its own and therefore does not have the mandate to introduce a paradigm-changing constitutional law like the proposed One Nation-One Election Bill is an irrelevant piece of contention.
In this context it is difficult to reject Mamata Banerjee’s offer to lead the anti-BJP Bharat Bloc, which, for now, is a losing gambit: better late than never. Responsible for the dismal performance of the INDIA bloc after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in which the BJP won 238 seats as against the 240 seats it won and the NDA’s 293 seats out of a total of 543 seats belonged to the Congress. It failed miserably in Haryana, detracting from an expected win; It failed to perform poorly in Jammu and Kashmir and Maharashtra and it failed to sustain the momentum built by the Bharat Bloc during the Lok Sabha elections. The point at which the Congress and Indian factions had to work was the large gulf between the Congress and the BJP; The Bharat Bloc did not and did not, preferring to squabble over seat allocation rather than realizing that its hold on the imagination and support of the electorate was weak.
According to the Prime Minister’s claim, his “One is safe“The mantra resonated with voters in Maharashtra, giving him the context for his defeat in the Lok Sabha elections six months ago. He and the BJP’s social media activists, as well as the RSS and the wider Sangh Parivar, have been working hard to cover up the BJP’s failure in the Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, pointing out that the BJP has A by-election was held in 48 assembly seats, where he won 28.
Voter confidence in contested coalitions is never high; The acceptance of left-wing coalition parties depending on their victory is also diminishing. As a result of the BJP-engineered split, the Sharad Pawar-founded NCP and Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena limped along. Adding to Congress’ incomprehensible focus on the alleged misdeeds of the Adani Group, aided and abetted by the Narendra Modi government, the credibility of the Bharat Bloc and Mahavikas Aghadi as alternatives was strained.
It is necessary to come back again and again to why the losses in Haryana and Maharashtra damaged the effectiveness of India’s factions in Parliament and national politics, never more so than now under a Modi government armed with a mandate from election results. These two states are preparing to change the basic structure of Indian politics.
One nation-one election is a clear declaration of the supremacy of the executive over the legislature, where the judiciary can walk. It is a realignment that cements the hierarchy between the Center and the states, superseding the typical federal structure established by the Constitution. A one-nation-one electoral system would give priority to the election schedule set by the center over the states. The draft proposal says a lot about elected state governments in the middle of their five-year term by working out what will happen when the next Lok Sabha elections are called. It details what happens if an elected state government loses its majority. It has made it clear that new elections will not be allowed under the template of one nation-one election, which should be allowed to be decided by the people.
There is no way the Indian faction in Parliament can stop the BJP and the Modi government from passing the One Nation-One Election Bill with its new and in this context irrelevant mandate from the Maharashtra and Haryana state elections. Congress failed to anticipate that every political party would need to lead a coalition to create the pressure necessary to temporarily stop this legislation. After winning two states in 48 by-elections and failing to win crucial seats, the Congress must own up to the totally irresponsible act of allowing Rahul Gandhi’s obsession with the alleged alliance between the Adani Group and Narendra Modi to take over. It needed to lead the Bharat Bloc and strengthen the opposition against the BJP.
While regional parties need to be bipartisan or progressive to see clearly where Indian politics is headed, the vaguely myopic vision of most regional parties, including Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress, is also responsible for the triumphant progress of infrastructure destruction. The Indian state established by the Constitution in which the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary balance each other. On the other hand, on the one hand, and the constituent states of the Union have the freedom to conduct their politics according to their terms and schedules, as long as whatever they do is subject to the Constitution.
The BJP never had any illusions about the nature of the Indian state it wanted; Its political DNA pushes it towards centralization and hierarchy and legislates by which the most insignificant Preachers and workers function. Armed with this mentality, a centralized constitutional law is the obvious result. With a vote share of 36.7 per cent against the NDA’s 43.6 per cent vote share, the group of opposition leaders owes it to the electorate to represent their aspirations and their interests. Bowing to the BJP’s counter pressure and failing to fight back, India’s factionalism has enabled the Modi government to centralize power and subvert the structure of representative democracy.