The first meeting of the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) on the One Nation, One Election plan took place in Parliament on Wednesday in the presence of 37 out of the 39 MPs in the panel.
A detailed presentation was made by officials of the ministry of law and justice, led by the law secretary himself.
However, what drew everyone’s attention outside the committee room, where the meeting was taking place, was a large suitcase. This was being handed over to all the MPs as they stepped out of the meeting.
Upon further enquiry, it was revealed that the suitcase contained very important documentation.
This suitcase weighed a whopping 52 kg and is expected to be of great use to the members of Parliament on the committee.
The next question was what did the suitcase really contain? Officials present for the meeting informed the media that this suitcase had documents that the MPs could refer to for their study of the proposal.
“There are 23 volumes of documents that are enclosed in the suitcase, which includes 21 annexures of the report of the high-powered committee led by former President of India Ram Nath Kovind. The remaining two documents are the reports of the committee in English and Hindi,” an official told CNN-News18.
The 52 kg of documentation also includes material for the reference of the members, mentioning all the reports of the Law Commission and various court cases and references on the matter to date. In all, the documentation comprises 18,000 pages.
Meanwhile, the presentation made by law secretary Rajiv Mani was a crisp one. “The law ministry briefed about three important things, including the background of the subject, the rationale behind bringing such legislation, and the proposals in the bills, which the committee is to examine,” another official told CNN-News18.
While many MPs were spirited enough to carry the bag themselves up to their cars, it was interesting to see Dr Sambit Patra, a member of Parliament from the BJP, lift the bag and walk down the stairs, despite its weight, while some other members decided to take the lift to the ground floor so that they could go to their vehicles, and then others handed over the suitcase to their assistants to be taken to their cars.
The 39-member JPC is headed by BJP MP PP Chaudhary and includes members of all major parties, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra of the Congress, Sanjay Jha of the JD(U), Shiv Sena’s Shrikant Shinde, AAP’s Sanjay Singh, and TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee.
The Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill were introduced in the Lok Sabha during the winter session and referred to the committee.
The Constitution (129th) Amendment Bill, 2024, says there is an imperative need for holding simultaneous elections for various reasons, as polls have become expensive and time-consuming.
The bill proposes to insert a new article 82A—simultaneous elections to the House of the People (Lok Sabha) and all Legislative Assemblies—and to amend Article 83 (Duration of Houses of Parliament), Article 172 (Duration of State Legislatures), and Article 327 (power of Parliament to make provision with respect to elections to legislatures).
The bill also provides that after its enactment, a notification is to be issued by the President on the date of the first sitting of the Lok Sabha after a general election, and that date of the notification will be called the appointed date. The tenure of the Lok Sabha will be five years from that appointed date.
The tenure of all state assemblies, constituted by elections to the legislative assemblies after the appointed date and before the expiry of the full term of the House of the People, shall come to an end on the expiry of the full term of the Lok Sabha.
Opposition parties have raised concerns over the bills while ruling NDA leaders say the burden on the exchequer will be lessened. Opposition MPs have questioned if the country is logistically ready to hold simultaneous elections, pointing out that recent polls in Maharashtra and Jharkhand could not be held together with those in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir.
