New Delhi, December 20
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has appointed Bharatiya Janata Party MP PP Chaudhary as the chairperson of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the two bills on 'One Nation One Election.'
"The Hon'ble Speaker has been pleased to appoint Shri P. P. Chaudhary MP, Lok Sabha as the Chairperson of the Joint Committee on the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024 and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024," the notice by Lok Sabha General Secretary Utpal Kumar Singh read.
Just before Rajya Sabha was adjourned sine die on Friday, the House adopted the motion moved by Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal regarding forming the Joint Parliamentary Committee for two bills on 'One Nation One Election.'
The Joint Parliamentary Committee will have MPs including BJP's Ghanshyam Tewari, Congress' Randeep Surjewala, Congress' Mukul Wasnik, TMC's Saket Gokhale, YSR's V Vijaysai Reddy and others.
Meghwal had moved The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024 and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024, to amend the Constitution, also called the 'One Nation One Election Bill'. Apart from these two, the minister also moved for the bills to amend Government of Union Territories Act, 1963, the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991 and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 to be referred to the Joint Parliamentary Committee.
Earlier, the Lok Sabha also adopted the resolution to refer the 'One Nation One Election' bill to the JPC. Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Manish Tewari, NCP's Supriya Sule, TMC's Kalyan Banerjee and BJP's Bansuri Swaraj and Anurag Singh Thakur, are in the JPC.
Other Lok Sabha MPs who are part of the JPC are; C M Ramesh; Parshottambhai Rupala; Vishnu Dayal Ram; Bhartruhari Mahtab; Sambit Patra; Anil Baluni; Vishnu Datt Sharma; Manish Tewari; Sukhdeo Bhagat; Dharmendra Yadav
The current JPC will have 27 members from LS and 12 from RS. The committee will be tasked to submit the report to Lok Sabha on the first day of the last week of the next session of Parliament.
The bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, proposes simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies across India.
Opposition members have opposed the amendments, and have argued that the proposed change could disproportionately benefit the ruling party, giving it undue influence over the electoral process in states, and undermining the autonomy of regional parties. The bills had been approved by the Cabinet last week.