Increasing the Lok sabha term to 7 years - Advantages & Disadvantages

Increasing the Lok sabha term to 7 years - Advantages & Disadvantages

Introduction:

Lok Sabha tenure was 6 years in its initial phase which was later amended to 5 years which continues till present date. With the involvement of the yester years' UPA government in so many scams and its inactivity phase that lasted throughout the rule, Lok Sabha elections 2014 was more of a predicted win. Now that we have less to complain against the government chosen by a whopping majority of our nation, let's consider if it would be a better idea to increase Lok Sabha terms to 7 years, something that has never been. There will be pros of having lesser elections but there will be cons of extending the tenure of office for those in power. Not that our present system is any short of disadvantages, but there is no harm in considering a new tenure.

Advantages:

1. The cost of elections and campaigning by parties which is so often higher than expected would be lessened to a good extent in the long run. In the elections of 2014, all the parties took turns at blaming each other on their source of funds for election campaigning. Some of them were ridiculously high. In a country where poverty is still is a major drawback, useless expenses on elections should be cut down and increasing the tenure of Lok Sabha seems a good way.

2. Plans and strategies that are made by the government take time to yield result. The smart city plan, for instance, cannot be completed within the 5 years tenure of the government. First year was spent in deciding which cities would come under the plan. The next two years would be spent studying and surveying the cities to determine which plans and policies would work for them. When the final time for seeing the result of their efforts would be close, all their attention would shift to elections. Either the plan would be lost or interest in implementing would be lost owing to change in priority.

3. Politicians usually have big ideas and plans at the time of elections. By the time they get the power, they also realize that they have only 5 years to reap the benefits of all the efforts they have put into the elections. Hence, they indulge in malpractices, scams and corruptions. Mostly politicians indulge in plans that would show the results sooner and not in the long run. Just to build their image in the eyes of public, they indulge in show off and actions that would only please a particular community which would later serve as their vote bank. Increasing the tenure to 7 years would have them relaxed and concentrate better on long term plans.

4. We have seen the erstwhile government crying that the present government simply took credits for the work which they had begun years back. This at least wouldn't happen if tenure is increased to add two more years. There would be no complaining that there wasn't enough time to implement programs that they had begun. People would also get a better idea about the efficiency of a political party which would help them decide better in the next elections.

Disadvantages:

1. Increasing the term of Lok Sabha is simply giving more powers to the ruling party which already acts as king within the allotted time period. Atrocities will know no limits if politicians know that there would be no check on their powers for the next seven years. The significance of five years term is more than what we could decipher simply by taking into account expenditures and plans by the government.

2. Five years is quite a reasonable period of time to show a good amount of work done by the ruling party so as to assure that they deserve to rule for another five years or so. If a government is unable to give this assurance to citizens in five years, it doesn't make any difference to them if they get another 2 years. It would get them indulging more ravenously in adding black money to their own accounts.

3. Let's not forget that all the scams and corruptions that we are talking about happened not in five years tenure but in 10 years. The government obviously got more confidence than it deserved or needed. They could really believe that people are foolish enough and their deeds would never be uncovered. We are definitely not looking forward to giving this kind of powers to any political party in years to come.

4. In the present scenario, ruling party has the fear of spoiling their image for the next election which is not very far. The erstwhile government, on the other hand, has enjoyed a whole five years and got re-elected for another five years which gave them the idea that they could go on being inactive without being noticed.

Conclusion:

It doesn't matter whether the tenure of office is five years or seven, what matters is a check on powers which is only possible if the tenure is short lived. The five years period has a good significance. It is neither too much to let the party take things for granted nor is it too less for parties to complain that they didn't get adequate time to implement their plans. Five years terms should neither be decreased nor increased. This time frame is reasonable enough to give ruling party a good opportunity to show the voters that there is scope for development and good times if they re-elect the same party.