Anurag Thakur, Priyanka Gandhi in Joint Parliamentary Committee for ‘One Nation One Election’

Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Manish Tewari, BJP leader Anurag Thakur have been included as members of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for One Nation One Election’ (ONOE).

The panel will have 21 members from Lok Sabha and 10 members from Rajya Sabha.

The other members are — Dharmendra Yadav, Kalyan Banerjee, Supriya Sule, Shrikant Eknath Shinde, Sambit Patra, Anil Baluni, Anurag Singh Thakur named as members of JPC.

The committee on ‘one nation, one election’ will submit a report to Lok Sabha on the first day of last week of next session of Parliament.

The development came a day after after Union Law and Justice Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal proposed that the bills be sent to the JPC after a fiery debate in which the opposition termed the move to introduce ONOE bill as “dictatorial”.

— Parshottambhai Rupala

— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra

— Dr. Shrikant Eknath Shinde

—Balashowry Vallabhaneni

—10 Members from the Rajya Sabha

The Union Government on Tuesday tabled the Constitution (129 Amendment) Bill, 2024, in the Lok Sabha. As many as 263 members voted in favour of introduction of the bill and 198 against it.

The Bills, which were approved by the Cabinet last week, seek to pave the way for holding simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies across India.

The bills are a stepping stone towards implementing ‘One Nation, One Election’ proposal.

Opposition Congress, DMK, Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party, NCP-SP, Shiv Sena-UBT, AIMIM among others objected to the introduction of the bill contending that it was an assault on the basic structure of the Constitution.

Home Minister Amit Shah also told Lok Sabha that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said during a meeting of the Union Cabinet that the bill should be referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee for wider deliberations at every level.

During the consultations held by former president Ram Nath Kovind-led high level committee on ‘One Nation, One Elections’, 32 political parties supported the measure and 15 parties opposed it.