One Nation One Election Bill: Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Randeep Singh Surjewala will be part of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for ‘One Nation One Election’ bill. Other Congress MPs who will be part of the JPC include Manish Tewari and Sukhdev Bhagat.
The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, December 17, with 269 members voting in its favour and 196 against it. The bill proposes simultaneous elections for both Lok Sabha and state assemblies and was introduced by Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal. The bill will now be sent to a Joint Parliamentary Committee for further scrutiny and discussion.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah stated on Tuesday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had favoured detailed discussion at every level on ‘One Nation, One Election’ bill and wanted it to be referred to a JPC. He revealed this in the Lok Sabha when the House was hearing objections to the introduction of the Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill.
“When One Nation, One Election bills came up in Cabinet, PM Modi said these should be referred to the Joint Committee of Parliament. There should be a detailed discussion over it at every level,” Shah said on Tuesday.
The Home Minister stated that DMK member T R Baalu had also favoured referring the bill to a parliamentary committee. “The report of the JPC will be approved by the Union Cabinet and the Bill can be discussed again in Parliament,” Shah said.
Meghwal had also introduced the Union Territories Law (Amendment) Bill, 2024, to enable simultaneous polls in the union territories Puducherry, Delhi and Jammu & Kashmir with the Lok Sabha polls.
The tabling of the bill triggered sharp criticism from the Opposition, with leaders such as Congress’s Manish Tiwari, NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule, TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee, and Samajwadi Party’s Dharmendra Yadav attacking the government for proposing a bill which they said challenged the basic structure of the Constitution. The Opposition parties called the bills an attack on the federal structure, a charge which was rejected by the Centre.
Union Law Minister stated the proposed bills did not attack the basic structure doctrine, adding the objections to the Bill were political in nature. “Principles such as judicial review, federal character of the Constitution, separation of powers, secular character, and supremacy of the Constitution had not changed,” Meghwal said.
