If the Bill passed by the Council of Ministers Parliament on Thursday passed it without changes, the earliest Lok Sabha and state assembly elections could be held simultaneously in 2034, government sources said.
A report by a high-level committee chaired by former President Ram Nath Kovind proposed the insertion of a new provision, Article 82A(1), which states that the President shall notify the “appointed date” in the first sitting of the Lok Sabha. A general election. It also proposed to insert Article 82 A (2), which states that the terms of State Assemblies elected after the “date of election” shall be reduced to coincide with the end of the full term of the Lok Sabha.
Sources said, this means that if the Bills are passed without amendments, the “fixed date” will be notified only in the first sitting of the elected Lok Sabha in 2029, as the first sitting of the elected Lok Sabha this year. has already been passed. The full term of the next Lok Sabha will be till 2034.
This timeline, sources said, will also work well for the Election Commission (EC), which will be primarily responsible for implementing the scheme across the country. ‘Building a political consensus and getting the bill passed by the parliament is just the beginning. After that the real work begins. The commission needs to order new Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for simultaneous voting for the Assembly and Lok Sabha, which require significant lead time,” said a senior poll panel official.
According to officials, it will take two and a half to three years for the commission to double the number of EVMs required for a single election. “It takes seven to eight months just to buy chips and other ingredients. Meanwhile, manufacturers like ECIL and BEL cannot produce in such large quantities overnight; They will need to measure their production capacity. So realistically, we are looking at a lead time of up to three years,” the official said.
Furthermore, commission sources noted that even if the government agrees and passes the bills in late 2025 or early 2026, the commission will be left with a tight deadline to arrange logistics, with little room for error or unforeseen circumstances. “Even if the bills are passed within a year (to hold elections at once in 2029), that timeline will cut that pretty well,” the Commission source said.
The Kovind committee also recommended a third bill to hold local body elections at the same time after 100 days of the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections with a single electoral roll. Government sources said these proposals are not being considered for now.
These amendments will have to be approved by 50 per cent of the states as local body elections are conducted by state election commissions. Sources said that apart from the amendment for the same voter list, the boundaries of the wards should be brought under the respective assembly area.
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