One Nation One Poll JPC First Meeting Begins, Chairman Says Will Take Inputs From All
One Nation One Poll JPC First Meeting Begins, Chairman Says Will Take Inputs From All
M.U.H
08/01/202522
One Nation One Poll JPC Meeting: The first meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on One Nation, One Election has begun. The committee members will be briefed by officials of the Union Law and Justice (legislative department) officials.
The JPC is mandated to review the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024, and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024, which aim to align elections at the national and state levels. The JPC is headed by BJP MP and a former minister of state for law, PP Chaudhary, who called the meeting.
The One Nation, One Election Bills were introduced in Lok Sabha on December 17. The JPC comprises 39 members, with 27 from Lok Sabha and 12 from Rajya Sabha.
Chaudhary said the members will discuss the Bill threadbare and collate everyone’s suggestions.
The JPC’s primary task will be to examine the feasibility and framework for conducting simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies.
The committee will also evaluate proposals for synchronising elections in Union Territories, including Puducherry, Delhi, and Jammu and Kashmir, with the Lok Sabha elections.
The panel 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, are expected to join the meeting.
Meanwhile, two MPs, CM Ramesh from the BJP and Shambhavi from the L JP, have informed the JPC chairman about their unavailability. They said they were unable to attend the meeting due to unavoidable circumstances.
The Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha by Law Minister Arjun Meghwal following a debate lasting nearly 90 minutes. After a division of votes, the introduction of the Bill was approved with 269 MPs voting in favour and 198 voting against it. The Bills were later referred to the committee for further scrutiny.
The government decided to increase the committee’s strength from 31 to 39 as more political parties expressed the desire to be part of the exercise to examine the two draft legislations on simultaneous elections.
Former Union ministers Anurag Thakur, Parshottam Rupala, and Manish Tewari, and several first-term lawmakers, including Bansuri Swaraj and Sambit Patra, are also members of the committee.
What JPC Members Say
One of its members, BJP MP Sanjay Jaiswal said people of the country should think of ending the process of elections every other month.
“This destabilises the functioning of the entire country. So, this is a really good decision taken under the leadership of former President Ram Nath Kovind. The country ran just like this for 18 years after the Constitution was drafted. However, due to the personal ambitions of Indira Gandhi, this was amended. It needs to be rectified once again," he explained.
When asked if the Bill would be placed on the last day of the next Parliament Session, he said, “I don’t think so. I don’t think there will be any discussions on doing this in such haste. This will be done patiently with deliberation by every party. The timeline discussed so far is 2034. So, this is a big timeline. A lot of things have to be done before that. I think all parties should go ahead on this with a unanimous decision after due deliberation."
